Obituaries Australia

A three-weeks-old baby girl was accidently smothered in the bedclothes alongside a trained nurse, the Burwood Coroner (Mr. R. Kersley) was told yesterday.

Mr. Kersley, who was formerly magistrate at Dubbo, was inquiring into the death on November 28 of Judith Alston Loveday, daughter of Ray Francis Loveday, a barrister, of Enfield.

Loveday told the Coroner that he had employed Nurse Yvonne Henningham the day his wife came from the hospital with the baby. On the morning of November 28 he and his wife entered the room occupied by the nurse and baby. The bassinet was empty, and the nurse was asleep in bed.

Mrs. Loveday said: "Where is tlie baby? It is gone."

The nurse then woke up and the child was seen beneath the bedclothes. The baby did not appear to be breathing.

Nurse Henningham, told the Coroner: "I must have lain down with the baby—I didn't know what I was doing."

She said that she had come direct from another case and had eight weeks without a break. She was over-tired.

"I didn't know the baby was in bed beside me until I got up after hearing Mrs. Loveday say, 'Where is the baby?' ' she said.

Nurse Henningham said it was against her training to take a child into bed with her.

She said the child was crying and she picked it up to pacify it. She could not remember anything after that. Mr. Kersley returned a finding of accidental death.