Mother aborted baby in last week of pregnancy with drugs sold online
A MARRIED woman is facing jail for aborting her baby herself in the final week of pregnancy.
Sarah Catt, 35, bought a drug over the internet and appeared in court yesterday charged with taking it with ‘intent to procure a miscarriage’.
She has pleaded guilty to the charge but refused to co- operate with police and detectives do not know what happened to the baby’s body.
Further details of the ‘highly unusual’ case will be revealed when the defendant returns to Leeds Crown Court to be sentenced in September.
Catt has two children aged 10 and eight, and is still with her husband Stephen, 41, who accompanied her to court yesterday.
The couple have kept the case secret from close relatives and Catt’s father-inlaw last night said news of the court appearance was a ‘complete shock’.
He described Catt as a ‘lovely woman’ and said the offence was ‘totally out of character’.
Police revealed Catt had a scan at two days short of 30 weeks in March 2010, which confirmed she was pregnant.
It is not clear whether she had known she was pregnant before the scan.
However, the baby was terminated ‘in the final stages of pregnancy’.
Chief Inspector Kerrin Smith, of North
‘No remains have been traced’
Yorkshire Police, said outside court ‘many questions remain unanswered’ despite a long police investigation.
Police found evidence Catt bought a drug via the internet which is commonly used to induce abortions.
Inspector Smith said the medication ‘could facilitate the labour and delivery of a child’.
She said: ‘The evidence shows this to have happened in the final stages of pregnancy within the last week of the due date that this baby should have been born.
‘Throughout this investigation [Catt] has claimed that this pregnancy was terminated legitimately even though that would not be legally possible.
‘A legal termination can only be carried out up to 24 weeks in normal circumstances unless there are dire medical requirements to go beyond this. There were none in this case.’
Catt pleaded guilty to a charge under Section 58 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which in theory carries a maximum life imprisonment sentence.
Her charge stated that ‘between March and June 2010, being a woman with child, you unlawfully administered to yourself a poison or other noxious thing with intent to procure your own miscarriage’. Chief Inspector Smith said, despite the guilty plea, Catt had refused to tell police what happened. ‘To date no remains of that pregnancy, nor body, nor child has been traced,’ she said.
Mr Justice Maddison adjourned sentencing for a psychiatric report to be carried out, commenting: ‘There are highly unusual circumstances here.’
The defendant was released on bail. Catt, who works in a solicitor’s office, lives in a £200,000 house in Sherburn in Elmet, North Yorkshire, with her family. She and her husband, who works for a street lighting firm, have refused to comment. The couple met at a pub where Catt worked as a barmaid and married in a ceremony on the Caribbean island of Antigua in 2009.
Roger Catt, 67, her father-in-law, said: ‘It’s totally out of character. She’s a lovely woman. I would never imagine her to do anything like this.
‘ She has two lovely children she adores. She would not want to put that in jeopardy or Stephen. She has always been a doting mum. It is a complete shock to us.’
He added: ‘ We are not aware of any problems in the marriage. We had no idea about what has happened and did not know there was a court case.
‘As far as we were aware everything was hunky dory and still is.’