Student who hid baby in suitcase guilty of murder

Jia Xin Teo claimed she had been hearing voices which told her to kill or harm the baby

A woman who put her newborn baby in a cereal box and then hid it in a suitcase has been convicted of murder.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Jia Xin Teo, 22, from Coventry, had claimed she had been hearing voices which told her to kill or harm the baby, but a jury at Warwick Crown Court rejected her defence.

She did not tell the police where she hid her baby until two days had passed.

The CPS said the baby "was alive after birth and could have survived but Jia Xin Teo made the decision to place her inside a cereal box knowing that it would kill her."

Teo arrived from Malaysia earlier this year to study at Coventry University and the CPS said she concealed her pregnancy from everyone she knew.

The student, of Raglan Street in the city, gave birth to her baby at full term on 4 March and placed her in a cereal box, then inside a sealable plastic bag and then into the suitcase.

West Midlands Police said officers were called to her address two days later, after Teo arrived at hospital showing signs of having given birth.

Staff at the hospital asked her if she had had a baby, but she denied having done so.

Teo later admitted having given birth and being scared in case her family and friends back home in Malaysia found out and it affected her studies.

The police said this was the reason she gave for declining medical help, giving birth at her address and hiding it from her flatmates.

After her conviction on Thursday, James Leslie Francis, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said she arrived in the UK knowing she was likely to give birth in the country and had the opportunity to seek help.

But he said she "chose to carry her pregnancy in secret and give birth alone".

He also said she refused to go to hospital to get checked after giving birth and "lied to friends who cared about her, to doctors at the hospital and to the police so that no-one found her baby".

Teo will be sentenced at a date to be arranged.