Mum who killed her newborn baby with scissors and dumped in a bin dies in prison

01 August 2023 , 17:59

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Rachel Tunstill has died in prison (Image: PA)

A mum who stabbed her newborn baby girl to death with a pair of scissors and dumped her in a kitchen bin has died in prison.

Rachel Tunstill was twice jailed for life for the murder of her daughter Mia Kelly - the second sentence being handed down in 2019. The Prison Service confirmed today that Tunstill, who was housed at HMP Styal in Cheshire, had died.

A spokesperson said: "HMP Styal prisoner Rachel Tunstill died in custody on 1 August 2023. As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate." The circumstances around the death are currently unknown.

Tunstill was first found guilty of murder in June 2017. She was sentenced to life in prison, but that conviction was quashed a year later by the Court of Appeal after judges ruled lesser charges should have been considered. Tunstill then faced a retrial and was again found guilty of murder in February 2019. She was again sentenced to life with a minimum of 17 years.

Liverpool Crown Court heard Tunstill gave birth while her unsuspecting boyfriend played computer games in the next room in January 2017. She told him she was having a miscarriage and asked him for scissors before stabbing Mia 14 times just after she was born, it was said. It was discovered that the baby had been born alive but died after being stabbed in the back, neck and chest.

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At the time of sentencing the judge, Mr Justice King, said: "This must have been a sustained and frenzied attack on a victim who because of her age was particularly vulnerable. Her duty to her newborn baby was to cradle and comfort her - not to stab her to death. There was here in my judgement concealment of the body, albeit short-lived and in addition there was undoubtedly the indignity which was wrought upon the body by disposing of it in the way she did."

He said that the circumstances of the killing on January 14, 2017, were "particularly harrowing…..What drove her to kill her baby in this way may never be known. She gave birth alone in the bathroom of the flat in Wellington Court, Burnley, she shared with Mr Ryan, her partner of nine years, to a full-term baby weighing six to seven pounds. She called for a pair of scissors which Ryan brought to her and she then, unknown to her partner, used these scissors to stab her baby to death."

Tunstill, a university master's graduate in forensic psychology, put the body in a plastic carrier bag and put it in another bag and then into the kitchen bin. She then returned to the bathroom to clean up the blood and left it spotless. "She showed no emotion or remorse for stabbing her baby to death," said Mr Justice King. Tunstill spent the evening watching television while her partner played on his Xbox. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been approached for a comment.

Athena Stavrou