Girl, 19, gave birth in secret and hid baby’s body inside shoebox
A teenAger kept her pregnancy secret from her ‘traditional’ parents and hid the baby’s body in a shoebox after giving birth in her bedroom, an inquest heard yesterday.
When her mother discovered the body under the bed three days later. Ayesha tariq, then 19, lied about being ‘attacked’.
Police launched a rape inquiry when she claimed to have been grabbed by two strangers outside a youth club.
But she later admitted she was too ‘scared and ashamed’ to tell her family the truth about becoming pregnant by an on-off boyfriend
Her mother tasleem Akhtar said dating was ‘not what we do, it’s not culturally acceptable’.
Miss tariq spent about 12 hours in labour while pretending to be ill and gave birth alone with her parents asleep in the next room. Describing the ordeal to police, she said: ‘the pain was so bad I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening.’
the traumatised mother did not touch the baby girl or look at her face, Bradford Coroner’s Court was told.
experts were unable to say if the full-term baby was born dead or alive as there was a six day delay before the post mortem.
the baby was born at the family home in Keighley, West Yorkshire, on Wednesday February 27, 2013. After finding the body that Saturday, Mrs Akhtar told her daughter to put the shoebox in the car boot. there was a further three-day delay before they went to a hospital.
Police traced Miss tariq’s boyfriend, and after DnA tests indicated he was the father she admitted the rape story was a lie. the CPS considered charges against Miss tariq for infanticide and attempting to pervert the course of justice. they also considered charging Mrs Akhtar for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
However, a decision was made to take no further action.
Yesterday Miss tariq, now 23, refused to answer 36 questions by coroner Martin Fleming about the birth, her actions and the condition of her baby for fear of incriminating herself. She said it wasn’t difficult to hide her condition, adding: ‘I never got a big bump.’
Miss tariq did tell her boyfriend but he ‘didn’t care’ and she said she ‘wanted to get rid of it’, adding: ‘I blocked it out of my head, thinking “it’s not real, it’s not real”.’
She said was desperate to avoid her father finding out as he ‘came from Pakistan’ and had traditional views. ‘If he found out I had sex I don’t know what his reaction would be,’ she said.
Miss tariq said she had ‘blacked out at some point’ after the baby was born. Asked if the girl was born dead or alive, she replied: ‘I was expecting it to cry but it didn’t.’
Mrs Akhtar said she found the shoebox after following a smell in her daughter’s room. Miss tariq refused to let her look inside. She said that after the teenager told her she had been attacked ‘I went into shock ... I reassured her it would be okay’.
A post mortem gave the cause of death as ‘not ascertained.’
two pathologists told the court there was no evidence the baby died inside the mother but neither could give an opinion as to whether she was stillborn or born alive.
Describing it as a ‘ very sad’ case, Mr Fleming gave a narrative conclusion. He said there was ‘insufficient evidence’ on the balance of probabilities to ‘determine whether Baby tariq was born alive or stillborn’.
‘Too scared to tell her parents’