Wolverhampton rubbish chute baby will live with horrific injuries for life

Showing signs of severe cerebral palsy and having to be fed through a tube, she suffered horrific injuries when she was thrown into a bin bag and tossed down a 44ft rubbish chute.

The crime shocked experienced detectives, who described it as the worst case they have ever had to deal with.

And while the young child receives care from specially-trained foster parents, her mother, who a court heard was suffering from a severe form of post-natal depression at the time, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Police said that during interviews immediately after being detained, 25-year-old Kurdish national Abdulrahman did not ask once about the condition of her child. Detective Inspector

John Smith, who led the investigation from the day after the child was discovered, said it was the worst case he had dealt with.

"It was a tragic case to investigate and there is no satisfaction or pleasure in the outcome as a child suffered terrible injuries that will affect her for the rest of her life," he said.

"There was nothing in her background to indicate why she may have done this and all health professionals who looked after her and the baby had no concerns for the two."

Abdulrahman was born in the small town of Kalar, situated in Kurdistan, northern Iraq.

Some neighbourhoods in the town were used as a relocation camp for Kurdish people under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Growing up, she lived there with her parents and six brothers and sisters amid the troubles of the war-torn country. Her father worked as a hospital security guard and as a taxi driver and Abdulrahman described her upbringing as 'trouble-free'.

Her eldest brother, who used to take her to school each day, died when she was 18.

Abdulrahman was close to her brother. The death hit her hard and she refused to speak to anyone. She was also said to have shown signs of struggling to cope emotionally following an illness to her mother.

She met her husband Mohamad Amin through an arranged marriage organised by her father, who was a close friend of Mr Amin's father. He had been in England since 2001 but travelled back to Kurdistan to meet Abdulrahman in 2009 and the couple were married soon after.

They lived together for two months in the country before Mr Amin returned to the UK for 10 months. He then went back to live with his wife for 10 months and again returned to England with a view to his wife following once she had arranged a visa.

During their time apart, the couple were said to have spoken to each other almost every day over the telephone, and Abdulrahman eventually arrived in the UK in August 2011 to live with her husband in Wolverhampton.

Her existence in the city was barely noticeable. She would stay at home each day at the flat she shared with her husband while he went out to earn money as a takeaway delivery driver and carwash worker.

With no grasp of the English language, Abdulrahman would sit at home with the TV on in the background, unable to understand what was being said. The defendant told jurors that she was desperate to become a mother and the couple immediately started trying for a baby after she arrived in the country, even visiting a doctor when it did not happen quickly.

But by early 2012, Abdulrahman discovered she was pregnant, claiming that becoming a mother was a 'dream come true'. The defendant told jurors she was a loving and caring person, and cited examples of looking after her younger siblings while growing up and explaining that she would never hurt a child. But on September 8 last year, she did just that.

Three days after being released from hospital and while her husband was at work, Abdulrahman packed her baby into a rubbish bag and dropped her from the fifth floor bin hatch and down the chute.

The youngster would have travelled at about 30mph before hitting a metal plate, used to deflect the rubbish into bins, at the bottom of the chute. Abdulrahman then walked back into her flat, broke up a Moses basket with her bare hands and dumped that along with some cushions down the the same chute.

She called her husband and told him their child had been kidnapped, which led to him immediately calling police. The harrowing call he made to the emergency services was today revealed for the first time.

And it was he who discovered the child in the bin when he arrived home.

Mr Amin was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender but after spending a number of months on bail, was released without charge.

Meanwhile Abdulrahman tried to maintain that the child had been stolen during interviews with police.

But while she was being questioned, a painstaking search of her home and the area around the flats in Whitmore Reans was taking place. Det Insp Smith said it quickly became clear that her story did not stack up and that his officers found her fingerprints on the bags that were in the rubbish bin.

Abdulrahman cried in the witness box while giving evidence as she told the jury: "I put her in a rubbish bag and threw her away.'

"I don't know why but I was extremely sad and went back to the living room and I put her in a rubbish bag and I threw her away.

"After I did so, I just could not believe what I had just done and I could not understand why I did it. I was in shock."

Her defence team told that she was suffering from a severe form of post natal depression that only affects one in 500 women.

Jurors found her not guilty of the attempted murder of her child and also cleared her of a charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. However, they convicted her of GBH. It is understood the defendant's husband has continued to visit her at Foston Hall prison in Derbyshire since her arrest.

Meanwhile, it is believed he is in the process of applying for custody of the child.