A woman, whose convictions for murdering her baby son and attempting to murder his toddler sister were quashed, has pleaded guilty to the charges of infanticide and attempted murder.
The woman stabbed both children in July 2021 and they were taken to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children. The girl was successfully treated but the baby boy was pronounced dead.
The woman was convicted and jailed in 2023 for murdering her eight-week-old son and attempting to murder his toddler sister.
In December 2025, senior judges in the Court of Appeal ruled those convictions were unsafe. In March of this year, the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial.
The woman’s identity is protected by an anonymity order.
In Belfast High Court on Thursday she was read the charges of infanticide and attempted murder and pleaded guilty to both.
Infanticide is legally defined as the unlawful killing of a child aged under 12 months, by its biological mother, when at the time the “balance of the mother’s mind was disturbed”.
Belfast High Court heard that there is a “complex history to this case”, but there is “fulsome material available to the court”.
Mr Justice Stephen Fowler said he was going “to deal with it as quick as I can”.
The case was adjourned until the end of August when the woman is due to be sentenced.