R v Jia Xin Teo

LORD JUSTICE DOVE: On 24 October 2024 the applicant was convicted of murder following a trial in the Crown Court at Warwick. The following day, on 25 October 2024 the applicant was sentenced to imprisonment for life with a minimum term fixed by the judge at 17 years less the 230 days which she had already spent on remand. The statutory victim surcharge was ordered in the sum of £228. The applicant applies for leave to appeal against her sentence following refusal of permission by the single judge.

The facts of this terrible and tragic offence are as follows. The applicant is a Malaysian citizen who was studying for a degree in marketing at university in Malaysia. Whilst pursuing her course at the Malaysia University of Technology she became pregnant. The father of her child was her boyfriend then of three years' standing. The applicant was 21 years old at the time.

The course which she was pursuing offered her the opportunity to participate in an exchange programme with Coventry University, programmed to start in January 2024. On 12 December 2023 the applicant, having committed to take part in the exchange programme, bought a return flight to the United Kingdom. The applicant arrived in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2024 with her return flight booked for when the exchange had been completed on 17 May 2024.

By the time she flew to the United Kingdom she was approximately seven months' pregnant. She commenced her study at Coventry University and made a new circle of friends amongst those who were, like her, Mandarin speakers.

There appears to be no dispute but that prior to and at the time when the applicant made arrangements to join the exchange programme, she knew that she was pregnant. Whilst still in Malaysia she had adapted her clothing to disguise the changes to her body and appearance caused by her pregnancy. When she arrived in Coventry neither the university nor the friends which she made knew that she was pregnant. She did not seek any antenatal advice or support in respect of her pregnancy and made no preparations at all for the arrival of her child.

On 3 March 2024 her contractions started. One of her friends messaged her about meeting for breakfast the following day and she replied indicating that she was not feeling well as a result of having her period. The following day at around lunchtime the applicant sent the same friend a selfie leaving her friend to be concerned about how pale and ill she looked. Her friend, with another friend, ordered some food and took it to the applicant's room. The applicant came to the door but refused to allow her friend entry. When her friend was able to enter the bedroom, she noticed that there was blood everywhere. By this time the applicant had locked herself in the bathroom and as a result her friend sought help from the reception staff at the student accommodation.

Notwithstanding the efforts of the Coventry University Protection Officer, the applicant refused to speak to her or come out of her bathroom. An ambulance was called and further attempts were made to ask her to come out of the bathroom but she refused. Eventually they all left the applicant on her own.

By the early evening the applicant had decided to agree to go to hospital. When she was examined by the hospital staff they identified findings which were consistent with the recent vaginal birth of an advanced gestation pregnancy. The applicant denied that she had delivered a baby.

Subsequent to this on 6 March 2024 the applicant disclosed that she had delivered a baby and when asked if it was alive she replied that she did not know. She explained that she had placed the baby into luggage which was in the room of her student accommodation. The police attended and searched her room and discovered the body of the baby in a cereal box which had been placed within a sealed airlock bag.

The applicant was interviewed on 8 March 2024 and she explained that she had had the baby whilst in the bathroom of her student accommodation overnight between 3 and 4 March 2024. This was the source of the extensive blood found in her room. She had cut the cord with scissors and flushed the placenta away down the toilet. When her friends were trying to gain access to the bathroom, she had been scared that they would hear the baby crying and also whilst the baby was in the hand basin she had turned the tap on in order to cover the sound of the baby crying. After her friends and staff left, she remained on the floor of the bathroom with the baby which was at that time still moving. She described hearing voices telling her to put the baby into the cereal box. As a result of the emotions that she was feeling at that time, she removed the contents of the cereal box and placed the baby inside, placing the box in turn into the zip bag which had been in her suitcase. This was then placed inside the suitcase which was zipped closed.

Following a post mortem examination pathologists agreed that it was difficult to say with any precision what had been the exact cause of death but acute asphyxiation or soft smothering could not be ruled out. This could have been as a result of the way in which the baby was positioned in the cardboard box or within the sealed plastic bag.

The applicant is a woman of previous good character. In support of her case a psychiatric report was commissioned from Dr John Croft who explained in summary that on the basis of not only his understanding of the facts of the offence and the applicant's account, but also of a previous incident when the applicant suffered symptoms of mild depression when she was 16 or 17 in 2022, he considered that the applicant was suffering from a mild depressive disorder characterised by depressed mood, loss of interest and reduced energy. Alternatively, the applicant's symptoms could be diagnosed as falling within the spectrum of mental disorders known as adjustment disorders consequent upon significant and stressful life events.

Dr Croft indicated that the applicant had experienced auditory pseudo hallucinations at the time of these events which are a phenomena which he explains can often occur in states of extreme mental stress in vulnerable individuals. The applicant's mental ill-health was relied upon as a mitigating factor in respect of her case.

Further, on her behalf it was submitted that she was a very vulnerable and frightened person whose English language skills were poor and who did not have the support of immediate family members within the United Kingdom. She would be vulnerable during the course of her sentence as a consequence of the nature of the crime of which she had been convicted and would herself have to live with the consequences of the actions which had occurred on 3/4 March 2024.

In passing sentence, the judge recognised that a significant feature of the case was the question of whether or not there was "significant planning or premeditation" involved in the applicant's actions. The judge had received submissions on the applicant's behalf that this was not the case. The judge concluded that she was sure that there was a significant degree of premeditation or planning on the part of the applicant and that many weeks prior to the baby's birth she had decided to get rid of her and in order to do so take advantage of her trip to the United Kingdom and the fact that no one at Coventry who she met would have known or met her previously. The judge expressed her reasons for coming to this conclusion in the following terms:

The judge took account of this aggravating feature, along with the aggravating feature which she described as "powerful" that the applicant was the baby's mother from whom as a newborn, and particularly vulnerable, child she was entitled to expect care and protection. The applicant occupied a critically important position of trust.

The judge also took account of the applicant's age and good character as well as the evidence of the psychiatrists in the case Dr Croft and Dr Kennedy instructed on behalf of the prosecution who agreed with Dr Croft in respect of the applicant's mental ill-health. She bore in mind the submissions made on behalf of the applicant as to the toll that her conviction would have upon her for the rest of her life and her vulnerability in prison as a consequence of the nature of the offence she had committed. She also noted that prison would be harder for the applicant on the basis that her family resided in Malaysia.

Having taken all of those factors into account, the judge concluded that the appropriate minimum term which the applicant was to serve was one of 17 years less the time which she had spent on remand.

There is no dispute in this case but that the appropriate starting point for the minimum term in accordance with schedule 21 of the Sentencing Act 2020 was one of 15 years.

In support of the appeal it is submitted that the judge was wrong to conclude that she could be sure on the facts of this case that there was significant planning and premeditation on the part of the applicant. Furthermore, it is submitted that the uplift from the 15-year starting point failed to properly reflect the mitigation which was available to the applicant. It is submitted that in reality there is no evidence at all that the applicant had planned prior to the birth of her baby that she would kill her. She had taken no steps to find alternative or independent accommodation to kill her child, nor had she used any particular pre-purchased item to either kill or conceal her dead baby. No research, for instance on the internet, had been undertaken by the applicant which could support the conclusion that this was a killing which was premeditated. It is submitted that it was inappropriate for the judge to suggest at one stage of her sentencing remarks that the applicant had done her best to convince herself that she was not pregnant and then go on to conclude that she had formed the intention many weeks before her child was born that she should get rid of it when it arrived. Furthermore it was illogical to include the concealment of the baby's body in a suitcase as being evidence of premeditation. The concealment of the baby in the applicant's luggage was adventitious. It had not been purchased or procured for the purpose of concealing the baby's body.

Having examined those submissions, which have been advanced with characteristic focus and attraction by Miss Brand KC on behalf of this applicant, it appears to us that they fail to properly and fully appreciate the nature of the conclusion that the judge was reaching in respect of this issue as to planning and premeditation.

It is clear from her reasons that we have set out extensively above that the judge was satisfied to the criminal standard that at a significant time prior to the delivery of her baby the applicant had decided that no one was to know she was pregnant, no one was to know that she had had a baby when the baby arrived, and that she was going to get rid of the baby as soon as that baby was born so that nobody would ever know she had had a baby.

The judge concluded that the applicant's actions which she noted in her sentencing remarks were all directed towards giving effect to the course of this settled plan of action. The observation developed in submissions this morning that it was inconsistent for the judge to conclude that the applicant could not face up to her pregnancy and was in denial was inconsistent with that plan is, in our judgment, an overreading of the sentencing remarks. The observation that the judge was making about the applicant being in denial was her providing context for the motivation and the evolution of the plan which she was satisfied to the criminal standard the applicant had developed.

Whilst others might have formulated a more comprehensive or detailed plan than this applicant, the judge was in no doubt that the actions of this applicant were part of a plan which had been determined upon sometime prior to the baby's death, the object of which being to permanently obscure from anyone, including her family and friends, that she had ever become pregnant. All of her actions to ensure that the fact that she was or ever had been pregnant from ever coming to light were consistent. They commenced, and the plan's implementation commenced, from a time prior to her travelling to the United Kingdom. The death of her baby was, as the judge found, part and parcel if not the culmination of that long-established plan. To put the matter another way, it is clear that the judge concluded from the facts of this offence that she was entitled to be sure that the actions of the applicant in concealing she had gone into labour and had a baby did not either arise in the spur of the moment or out of desperation but were part of a long term endeavour to ensure that no one would ever know that she had had a baby.

Whilst this morning Miss Brand submits that there are two chronological sequences which might be considered in relation to planning or premeditation, one the longer term plan, the other what happened when the applicant was in the bathroom having delivered her baby, the reality of the judge's conclusions do not engage with that differentiation or disaggregation of the chronology. The judge's conclusions were in our judgment entirely clear and focused upon the longer term nature of what she was satisfied this applicant had decided to embark upon.

It follows that we are satisfied that the judge was entitled to reach the conclusions which she did on this issue and to the criminal standard. It is not simply that she was well placed to forge these conclusions having heard the evidence in the trial, but perhaps more importantly that she articulated clearly lucid, coherent and cogent reasons for reaching the conclusion which she did on this important issue.

In our view there is no substance in the applicant's further submissions that the judge failed to properly reflect the mitigation which was available and presented to her on behalf of the applicant. In arriving at the minimum term in this case, the judge had to form an overall view of the balance of mitigating and aggravating factors. We have already addressed one of the aggravating factors which was contentious. The other aggravating factor in this case was both obvious, uncontentious and very weighty. The applicant was in a key position of trust in respect of a very vulnerable newly born child. Her actions were a clear betrayal of that trust and the baby's age and vulnerability were a significant aggravating feature of the case.

The judge noted the mitigating factors which had been placed before her on behalf of the applicant and which have been enumerated already and it is clear from her sentencing remarks that she took them into account. Her overall judgment in this case that the aggravating factors materially outweighed the mitigating factors such that an uplift from the 15-year starting point was called for is in our view a judgment which is unimpeachable. The extent of the uplift was reasonable and proportionate reflecting the significant aggravating features in this case.

Whilst concern has been expressed in the submissions advanced on behalf of the applicant about the remarks not directly addressing the particular adjustments upwards and downwards in greater detail, we are unable to accept that as a legitimate criticism. The reasons which the judge provided were adequate and it is clear that having identified the factors that were relevant to her exercise, this was an exercise in arriving at an overall judgment rather than one which was susceptible of mechanistic analysis. The sentence which the judge arrived at in our judgment was just and proportionate in the light of the very tragic circumstances of this particular case.

For all of these reasons, and notwithstanding the attractive advocacy of Miss Brand for which we are extremely grateful, we have concluded that the single judge was correct in his assessment that this case is not properly arguable and thus the application for leave to appeal must be refused.