ABSTRACT
Violating those taboos held most sacred, infanticide is an offence which bewilders and appals both the general public and professionals. In this crime the attributes conventionally assigned to motherhood are grotesquely distorted. The twin taboos of child killing and female violence are dramatically and irrevocably interwoven in this offence. The public imagination feeds on tales of infanticide, devouring the details with disbelief and fascination. According to the recorded crime statistics it is a very rare crime: in 1997 there were only three convictions for the crime of infanticide, and over the previous ten-year period the greatest number of convictions for this crime was in 1988, when eight women were found guilty of infanticide, of whom seven received a probation order (HMSO, 1998). Infanticide is a crime which can only be committed by women, as the law does not recognise paternal killing of a child under the age of 1 as an instance of infanticide.
