Paris Mayo sentenced for killing newborn baby in Ross-on-Wye

Paris Mayo, who is now 19, will serve a minimum of 12 years behind bars after she murdered Stanley at her family home in Springfield Road, Ross-on-Wye on March 23, 2019.

Mayo was just 15 at the time she killed the baby, first crushing his head beneath her foot before stuffing five cotton wool balls down his throat. She then disposed his body in a bin bag, leaving it on the front doorstep and going to bed, where it was discovered by her mother.

The teenager had denied knowing she was pregnant and killing her son, saying he was already dead when she gave birth to him.

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Mayo, of Ruardean in Gloucestershire, cried in the dock last Friday (June 23) as jurors returned a majority guilty verdict after eight hours and 38 minutes of deliberation.

On Monday (June 26), Mayo, who was remanded in custody over the weekend, appeared in the dock again wearing the same black T-shirt and black-and-white patterned skirt she wore to court on Friday, to be sentenced by judge Mr Justice Garnham.

The judge told Mayo that he accepted that she had a difficult teenage-hood, and like many children of that age, was insecure. 

"You wanted to be thinner; you were worried about being too tall; you did not like what you looked like," he said.

"You began having sex when you were 13. You told the court that you did so because “it was a way to get people to like me”.

"You had unprotected sex with the boy who fathered Stanley because he didn’t like wearing a condom and you “wanted him to like me, so I would do whatever he wanted to keep him happy”.

"Emotionally cruel father"

The court heard that Mayo's parents had separated and the teenager lived part time with her mother and part time with her father.

However, Judge Garnham described Mayo's father - who died just 10 days after Stanley was born due to having a heart condition, diabates and kidney disease - as being "emotionally cruel."

"Your mother had her own problems and offered precious little support to you at the best of times," said Judge Garnham.

Paris Mayo has been jailed for a minimum of 12 years. Photo: Jacob King/PA (Image: Jacob King/PA)

"These were not the best of times. You and your brother were very conscious of not bothering or upsetting your parents.

"As you put it during the trial, you thought your mother had “enough on her plate” without you bothering her with the possibility of you being pregnant.

"However, as difficult as your circumstances might have been, killing your baby son was a truly dreadful thing to do."

How Stanley died

Stanley died of asphixiation together with the consequences of a head injury. 

"A blow to the head can also cause a loss of consciousness," said Judge Garnham.

"I do not have evidence to support a conclusion that Stanley was conscious between the injury to his skull and his death.

"Somewhere between 45 and 90 minutes later, as I find it to be, you suffocated your son by pushing the cotton wool balls down his throat, and pinching his nose closed, leaving the marks seen at post mortem.

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"Although it was plainly your intention to kill, there is no proper basis on which I can conclude that he was conscious at the time.

"I cannot find therefore that he suffered any prolonged pain as a result of your attacks on him. Nonetheless, the violence of these two attacks and your determination to ensure Stanley’s death are matters that aggravate the offending.

"There was a somewhat half-hearted attempt to conceal what you had done and to dispose of the body.

"The steps you took – wiping up some of the blood, leaving Stanley’s body in a bin bag near the doorway and asking your brother to put it in the bin when he got up the following morning, suggest there was no real forethought or planning as to what you would need to do to hide what you had done.

"You are far from stupid or uneducated and if you really had planned in advance to kill your child and conceal the evidence of that crime, there were obvious steps you could have taken."

"Mayo knew she was pregnant" - judge

"I accept the prosecutions submissions that, on any view, you knew you were pregnant and about to give birth an hour or so before you did so," said Judge Garnham.

"At that time there is no question of the balance of your mind being disturbed by pregnancy denial or any other condition.

"You could have asked your mother for help or rung the emergency services. Whilst there might have been grounds for doubting how your mother would have coped, that cannot be said of the emergency services.

"I am accordingly driven to the conclusion that at that stage at least you had decided you would have to kill your baby.

"You knew there were alternatives to giving birth and bringing up a child, namely abortion or adoption. You were, however, a rather pathetic (in the true sense of that word) 15-year-old girl, faced with a problem of such appalling dimensions and consequences, as you saw them to be, that you could not see through it, and so resorted to a process of denial during much of your pregnancy.

"But by the evening of March 23 you knew what was happening to your body and in those last minutes you decided that you had to get rid of this baby. To that extent this was a pre-meditated killing."