'I lost control of my thoughts before I threw my six-day-old baby down a rubbish chute', mother tells court

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A mother has told a court she 'lost control' of her thoughts before throwing her six-day-old baby down a tower-block rubbish chute.

Jaymin Abdulrahman, said to have been suffering from a post-natal psychosis, told jurors she did not plan to cause any harm to the baby before the incident last September.

The Crown alleges the 25-year-old Iraqi national deliberately placed her baby daughter into the chute with the intention of killing her.

Abdulrahman, who denies attempted murder and inflicting grievous bodily harm, wept several times while giving evidence on the third day of her trial.

Speaking through a Kurdish interpreter, she told the court she was in tears while cleaning her bathroom shortly before placing the baby in the chute.

'I was extremely sad,' she told jurors. 'I went to the living room, I put the baby in a rubbish bag and I threw her away.

'After I had done so, I just couldn’t believe what I had just done, and I couldn’t understand why I did it.

'I was in shock.'

Answering questions from defence barrister Rachel Brand QC, Abdulrahman added that she had not 'planned' to do what she did and had not thought about what she was going to do.

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'Even now as I am speaking to you, I am still in a state of disbelief of what I have done.

Birmingham Crown Court heard that when the baby hit a metal plate at the bottom of the chute it was travelling at around 32mph. Miraculously it survived but suffered severe brain injuries including several skull fractures

'I have lost control of my thoughts when I did so.

'I can’t tell whether I was crying at the time or not, but I have done this.

'I wasn’t aware of what I was doing.

'If I thought that by doing so I would do some harm to the baby, I wouldn’t have done it.'

Asking Abdulrahman about her time in hospital after giving birth, Miss Brand asked her client: 'Did you have any thoughts at all of causing harm to her?'

The defendant replied: 'No. That kind of thought never came to me. This is something I could never imagine.

'I even despised people who were abusive to children.'

Prosecutors said they believe Abdulrahman knew what she was doing and intended to kill the baby

Abdulrahman was 'tired, sad and exhausted' in the week after her daughter’s birth and unaware of why she was crying.

At the start of the defence case, Miss Brand claimed Abdulrahman’s mental condition was so severe it prevented her from forming an intent to kill or cause serious injury to her daughter who fell more than 40ft into a bin store.

The 25-year-old denies attempted murder, causing grievous bodily harm with intent and inflicting grievous bodily harm.

Her daughter, whose name cannot be published for legal reasons, suffered skull fractures and brain injuries in the fall at a block of flats in Wolverhampton.

Opening her client’s case to the jury at Birmingham Crown Court, Miss Brand urged the panel not to view her as a 'monster'.

The lawyer conceded that the jury members’ hearts must have sank when they heard details of how the infant had been injured.

Ms Brand told the panel of seven men and five women: 'All I am asking you to do is to keep an open mind about the evidence you are going to hear in the next stage of this case.

'You are going to hear evidence in the next few days that shows this defendant was suffering from post-natal depression.'

The baby was found in a large bin wrapped in a piece of material after she was thrown down the rubbish chute

Submitting that Abdulrahman’s depression was so severe it amounted to a condition called postpartum psychosis, Miss Brand told jurors: 'What we are going to invite you to consider is that when this happened, Jaymin Abdulrahman was not truly capable of making a rational, a considered judgment about things that she did.'

Describing Abdulrahman, who came to the UK from Iraq in 2011, as a competent and loving mother, Miss Brand also argued that her illness meant she was not capable of 'forming an intent to either kill or cause really serious injury to her baby'.

The trial continues.