Sarah Catt, 36, of North Yorkshire, who aborted
her baby within days of his due date, has had her jail term cut from
eight years to three-and-a-half
A
woman who was jailed for eight years after aborting her unborn baby
within a week of his due date had her sentence reduced to
three-and-a-half years today.
Married
Sarah Catt, 36, who had been having an affair with a work colleague,
had successfully concealed the pregnancy from her husband and took drugs
she had bought on the internet to end her pregnancy.
Catt,
from Sherburn-in-Elmet, North Yorkshire, claimed the baby was stillborn
and buried his body, but has not revealed its whereabouts.
The
alarm was raised because there was a record of Catt’s pregnancy from an
abortion clinic’s scan she had after passing the 24-week legal limit
for terminations.
Today her sentence was cut down at London's Court of Appeal as Catt sobbed in the dock.
Lady
Justice Rafferty, heading a panel of three judges, said it was a
difficult sentencing exercise but the jail term was manifestly
excessive.
She said that
Catt's complicated obstetric history, which involved adoption, seeking
termination and concealment of pregnancy, threw up a 'potential for
disturbance, personal misery and long lasting difficulty'.
Catt,
who was described at her trial as 'cold and calculating', had no
relevant previous convictions and a psychiatric report excluded mental
disorder.
Lady Justice
Rafferty referred to a letter of 'remarkable restraint, dignity and
loyalty' from Catt's husband, which spoke of his hope that the couple
and their two young children could stay together as a family.
She said the facts of the case were 'mercifully, highly unusual'.
Catt,
who had been having an affair with her colleague for seven years when
she aborted her baby, was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court last September.
Mr
Justice Cooke said the seriousness of the crime lay between
manslaughter and murder after Catt pleaded guilty to administering a
poison with intent to procure a miscarriage.
He said she would have been charged with murder if the baby had been born a few days later and she had then killed him.
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'Robbed the baby of life': Catt, pictured in a
police mugshot (left) and during her trial last year (right), concealed
her pregnancy from her husband after having an affair with a work
colleague
He told Catt she had robbed an apparently healthy child,
‘vulnerable and defenceless, of the life which he was about to
commence’.
He added: ‘This was a cold, calculated decision that you took for your self-interest alone.’
The
baby was stillborn in May 2010, two months after Catt had visited an
abortion clinic in Leeds. Staff at the British Pregnancy Advisory
Clinic told her she was 26 weeks pregnant, and a second scan using more
advanced equipment at the city's St James' Hospital put the pregnancy at
29 weeks.
Immediately
after the scan she did an
internet search, asking: ‘Where can I get an illegal abortion?’, and in
April 2010 Catt ordered an abortion drug over the internet from a
company in
Mumbai, India.
It was delivered the following month and Catt took it and is believed to have given birth while her husband was out
the next day.
Catt, whose
husband stood by her through her trial, claimed the boy was stillborn
and she buried him and cleaned up the bathroom at home without her
husband finding out.
However,
police inquiries later revealed the baby was aborted just two days
before her due date – and the following day she went on a family holiday
to France as if nothing had happened.
She lied
to detectives about having a legal abortion at a clinic, but officers
have never found the baby’s remains or evidence to show he wasn’t born
alive. Catt has refused to say where her son’s remains could be found.
Sentencing: Catt was jailed for eight years by a judge sitting at Leeds Crown Court
During her trial last year, Leeds Crown Court heard Catt had an extraordinary history of secret pregnancies and deception.
In
1999, when she was a second year university student, she hid her first
pregnancy from her parents and gave the baby up for adoption
She then began the relationship with Stephen Catt, and later had an abortion with his agreement at
‘around the legal limit’ of 24 weeks.
'This was a cold, calculated decision that you took for your self-interest alone.'
- Original sentencing judge Mr Justice Cooke
She went on to have a daugther
but only after seeking to have a termination when she was ‘too far
advanced’.
Astonishingly, she also kept a further pregnancy a secret
from Mr Catt until the birth.
Catt was also conducting a long-term affair with a
married colleague at the law firm in York where she worked as an office
manager.
Prosecutor Simon
Waley said police discovered the seven-year affair when examining Catt’s
computer and took a statement from the lover.
In October 2009 Catt told her lover
she was pregnant. He offered to leave his wife to start a family with
her, but she ended the relationship and in January told him there was no
child and it was none of his business.
The couple resumed their ‘occasional
sexual relationship’ in June 2010 – soon after she had the home abortion
at almost full term.
During more than nine hours of
interviews with police Catt insisted she paid £1,700 cash for an
abortion at the Marie Stopes clinic in Manchester three days before the
legal cut-off date.
Detectives, however, discovered a
trail of evidence to show she was concealing a crime.
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