A YOUNG Thanet mother who concealed the body of her dead baby in a cool bag is to undergo psychiatric treatment as part of the court order passed on her.

Michell South, 23, of Elms Avenue, Ramsgate, was made subject of a two-year community rehabilitation order by Judge Timothy Nash who told her what she did was appalling and gruesome but he accepted she was suffering from a deep-seated psychiatric problem.

Canterbury Crown Court was told South didn’t realise she was pregnant until she was 37 weeks gone and she concealed her pregnancy from her family by wearing jogging bottoms and loose tee shirts.

She gave birth alone on the bathroom floor of her then home at Alexandra Road, Ramsgate, in February and cleaned and fed her baby son. She later left him in a car seat for 1½ hours while she visited her mother and returned to find him no longer breathing.

When she couldn’t resuscitate him, she hid the body under the stairs and later put it in a shed. It was after she moved to Prince Charles Road, St Peter’s Broadstairs, the decomposed child’s body was found in a sports bag in the cool bag in another shed.

She later told police she was afraid to tell her family what happened because she feared she would be blamed.

A post mortem was unable to determine the cause of the baby’s death but there was no evidence of injury or abnormality.

The court was told her family were supporting her and the judge said he was sure nothing similar would happen again.