Birth, Concealing - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition birth-concealing

Definition :

Birth, Concealing. See Offences against the Person Act, 1861, s. 60, which enacts that every person who shall, by any secret disposition (see R. v. Brown, 1870 LR 1 CCR 244) of the dead body of a child, whether such child died before, at, or after his birth, endeavour to conceal the birth thereof, shall be guilty of a misdeameanour, punishable with imprisonment not exceeding two years. To constitute the offence it must be established that the mother was delivered of a child within the meaning of the statute (see R. v. Colmer, 9 Cox, 506; R. v. Hewitt, 4 F. & F. 1101), that there was a definite act of concealment of the body as distinguished from abandonment, that the child was dead at the time, and that a body has been found and identified with that of the child to whom the charge relates. S. 60 of the Act provides, further, that if any woman tried for the murder of a child is acquitted thereof, she can lawfully be convicted of concealment of birth if there is evidence of that offence. The (English) Infanticide Act, 1922, s. 1(4), provides for such a finding in the case of the acquittal of a woman upon indictment for infanticide; (English) Infant Life (Preservation) Act, 1929 (19 & 20 Geo. 5, c. 34), s. 2(4), provides similarly upon acquittal upon indictment for child destruction. The offence was first created in connection with the birth of bastards only, and concealment by the mother was by 21 Jac. 1, c. 27, punishable by death until the repeal of that statute in1802 by 43 Geo. 3, c. 58, s. 3.

In Scotland the corresponding crime is concealment of pregnancy. A woman is guilty of this if she conceals her pregnancy during the whole time, and does not call for and use assistance in the birth, and if the child is found dead or not found at all, the punishment is imprisonment, not exceeding two years.