Mother goes on trial for murder of her baby son

A MOTHER has gone on trial accused of murdering her baby son on the day he was born by suffocating him with cling film, and hiding his corpse in a holdall in an effort to dodge justice.

Ineta Dzinguviene, 26, of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, is accused of asphyxiating the newborn, later named Paulius Dzingus, by holding the clear plastic wrapping over his nose or mouth, or by other means.

Dzinguviene is alleged to carried out the murder on 12 April last year, on the day the child was born.

She is also accused of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by trying to stop the police and procurator-fiscal from investigating the baby's death, and trying to avoid detection, arrest, and prosecution at points over the subsequent 24 hours.

It is alleged she firstly failed to notify police or relevant authorities that her son had died. It is then claimed that she concealed the baby's body with a blanket and carrier bag before placing it in a holdall and hiding it behind a box and a roll of carpet in the common close at the flats at 70A High Street, where the murder was carried out.

She is then said to have instructed a ten-year-old girl not to tell anyone she had seen her kneeling next to a bed, holding a roll of cling film immediately after she had returned from Fraserburgh Hospital.

Dzinguviene is said to have told others, including the police, that she had not given birth and was at hospital for a different reason.

At the High Court in Livingston yesterday, Dzinguviene, who is Lithuanian and is being assisted in the dock by a translator, denies murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

Judge John Beckett QC told the jury of eight women and seven men that the trial could be expected to last "a number of days".