Joanne Sharkey: Mother who suffocated baby Callum and left body in woods spared jailed
A woman who killed her newborn baby and abandoned his body in woodland has been spared jail, 27 years after the crime.
Joanne Sharkey, now 55, admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility over the death of her infant son, whose body was found in 1998 near Gulliver’s World theme park in Warrington, Cheshire. The baby was named "Callum" by police, after the nearby Callands district.
Sharkey, who was 28 at the time and working as a housing benefit officer, gave birth alone in the bathroom of her home in Croxteth, Liverpool. She later confessed to covering the baby’s nose and mouth to quiet him.
“I sort of reached down. I must have been on the floor at this point. I’ve covered his nose, his mouth. It just couldn’t make that noise, just to be quiet,” she told police.
The baby’s body was found inside a bin bag two days later by a dog walker. A pathologist found the infant was full-term and normally developed, but had suffered facial bruising and had tissue wads in his mouth. The cause of death was ruled “unascertained.”
Sharkey kept the pregnancy a secret from her husband and family by wearing loose clothing and distancing herself socially. She drove to Warrington after the birth to dispose of the body.
The breakthrough in the case came in 2023, when a routine review of the national DNA database identified a familial match with Sharkey’s first son, Matthew, who had been arrested for an unrelated matter. DNA tests confirmed that Joanne and her husband Neil were Callum’s biological parents.
Police arrested Sharkey in July 2023 on suspicion of murder. During a covert recording made inside the police car, she was heard telling her husband: “I’m not gonna f***** deny nothing, it is what it is, isn’t it. I f****** did it.”*
She later told detectives: “It’s haunting, something you think about every day. You try and push it out but it creeps back in. You carry on with your life, you go to work and you do Christmas and you do Easter but this is always in your head.”
At Liverpool Crown Court, Mrs Justice Eady sentenced Sharkey to two years in prison for manslaughter and six months for concealing the birth, to run concurrently, both suspended for two years.
Passing sentence, the judge told Sharkey: “The events that bring us to this court are both terrible and tragic. Nothing I can do or say can turn the clock back to resolve the tragedy of this case.”
“You had carried this with you the whole time, thinking about it every day. I’m satisfied your offending was not planned or premeditated. I’m satisfied that this very sad case calls for compassion. No useful purpose would be achieved by immediate imprisonment.”
Sharkey wept as the sentence was handed down, while family members in the public gallery broke into tears and embraced each other.
Psychiatric reports submitted to the court concluded Sharkey had been suffering from postnatal depression at the time of the offence. Barrister Jonas Hankin KC said her mental illness had “substantially impaired her ability to form rational judgement and exercise self-control.”
Nina Grahame KC, defending, said: “Were it not for her mental illness, it is inconceivable a woman such as Mrs Sharkey would have failed to care for her newborn child.”
Outside court, Detective Inspector Hannah Friend of Cheshire Police said: “The case of Baby Callum has stayed with the local community for 27 years; he has never been forgotten, and his memory has lived on in the area ever since.
“Our efforts to locate who cut his innocent life short have never wavered… While the sentencing hearing today marks the end of these proceedings, we will continue to remember Callum, as will all those who have been affected by this tragic case.”