Mother flushed baby down toilet

A mother has told an inquest hearing how she accidentally flushed her baby down a toilet before hiding his body in her car boot.

Claire Jones became pregnant after an affair with work colleague Marcus Bezerra, Cardiff Coroner's Court heard.

She hid her condition from friends and family, including partner of 11 years David Stoneman, by claiming a wheat allergy caused a hard mass to form in her stomach.

When she experienced pains in the early hours of December 28 last year, a week after her due date, she put it down to the diarrhoea from which she was suffering. Ms Jones said she did not realise she had given birth to son Daniel until she flushed the toilet at her partner's parents' home in Penarth, South Wales, where she had been celebrating Christmas.

Ms Jones, of Pontnewydd, Cwmbran, South Wales, told the inquest:

"While I was still on the toilet, I flushed it, and I felt something pull. I stood up slightly, and I could see a foot in the bowl of the toilet."

Sobbing, Ms Jones said: "I could see the baby's foot, so I pulled the baby out. I sat by the toilet. I put him on my lap. He wasn't crying. I was trying to feel for a pulse and there was nothing."

Ms Jones, who had her mobile phone with her, said she did not call for help because she panicked and tried to revive him on her own.

She said: "I just kept trying and trying, and it wasn't working. He was blue. I wrapped him in a towel. I don't remember how, but I must have put him in the boot of the car."

Daniel's body was found in his mother's Vauxhall Astra at the home she shared with Mr Stoneman in St Mellons, Cardiff, after she was arrested 10 days later. A post-mortem examination could not confirm if Daniel, who weighed seven-and-a-half pounds, died before or after birth. Pathologist Andrew Davison said if Daniel did survive birth, it was likely he drowned.

Cardiff Coroner Mary Hassell recorded a narrative verdict describing the circumstances of Daniel's death, saying Ms Jones built up a "web of deception" to conceal the pregnancy and subsequent birth.

The coroner said she did not know if Daniel had been stillborn or not, but dismissed his mother's account that she did not realise she had given birth.