By CHATULA KAMPO –

 THE Ndola High Court has found a 14-year-old girl who dumped her newly-born baby outside the fence of her house in Minsundu area in Ndola guilty of infanticide.

 High Court Judge Mwiinde Siavwapa found the juvenile offender guilty upon her own admission of guilt to the charge.

 The facts of the case are that the juvenile on September 12, last year, in Ndola wilfully caused the death of her child who was under the age of 12 months.

 The facts as read in court were that the girl on the material day had labour pains in the morning and did not tell anyone that she was expecting a baby.

 When the labour pains intensified, she told her guardian’s maid that she was unwell and she needed some pain killers.

 “When the juvenile offender started vomiting, the maid decided to go and inform her guardian about her illness. After she left, the accused delivered by herself a live baby boy that weighed 3.2 kilogrammes.

 “The girl then decided to dispose of her baby outside the wall fence of the house in the grass. After dumping the baby, she went back inside the house where she started cleaning the blood that was left after delivering,” read the facts.

 When the maid came back, she suspected the juvenile who was found cleaning her clothes to have delivered a baby.

 When she interrogated her over the matter, the girl admitted and told the maid that she had thrown away the baby outside the fence.

 The case was reported to the police and the baby was taken to Arthur Davison Children’s Hospital where it was certified dead upon arrival.

 A postmortem was conducted and revealed that the baby died of anaemia and some injuries.

 Mr Justice Siavwapa, in passing his ruling, said the charge was proved against the juvenile offender and adjourned the case to January 20 and 22 for the social welfare report and court order, respectively.

 The juvenile offender was remanded in custody.