THE jury in the trial of a Burnley woman accused of murdering her baby daughter has been asked to consider what was in her mind at the time she killed the newborn.

Rachel Tunstill’s defence lawyer, Simon Kealy, reminded the jury about the accounts of a number of health professionals, who described her as 'completely lacking emotion with an empty, vacant look', when she revealed she had given birth alone in the bathroom.

Tunstill said she had suffered a miscarriage when she went to the A and E department of Burnley Hospital on January 16, the court heard.

But when nurse Andrea Parkinson examined Tunstall, and asked her: “You’ve passed a baby, haven’t you?”, Tunstill replied: “I have. I’ve managed it, I’ve sorted it. It weren’t alive when it was born.”

Closing the defence case at Preston Crown Court, Mr Kealy, said: “It was the circumstances in the way it was conveyed by Rachel Tunstill that was the most striking element of that conversation and caused the most upset.

“It was the complete lack of emotion, the empty vacant look as she recollected these terrible events.

“It must have been something to have affected this experienced nurse so much.”

Matron Tracey Thompson, who quizzed Tunstill about the birth on January 14, described Tunstill as 'childlike' and recounted her asking if she had done anything wrong.

PC Wild, who attended hospital, said Tunstill would not make eye contact and seemed fixated on her police radio.

Mr Kealy said: “Why was it like that when you might expect it to be the complete opposite?

“When a woman who gave birth on her own, in her own bathroom, and the baby had died, why was the presentation so different?”

Two psychiatrists described an 'emotional blunting' which was symptomatic of one of the mental health conditions she was suffering, Mr Kealy told the jury.

He added: “The prosecution say that this was a prolonged display, simply part of an elaborate trick perpetrated by Rachel Tunstill to hide the fact she had murdered her own baby.

“It is not in dispute that Miss Tunstill was in the bathroom at her home for several hours undergoing childbirth alone, without support from her partner or medical staff, without any pain relief.

“It is not in dispute that the baby was born in the bathroom, was born alive, and while in the bathroom was stabbed a number of times with a pair of scissors resulting in the baby’s death.

“Rachel Tunstill accepts as part of her evidence that it could only have been her that inflicted these blows.

“It is what was going through her mind at the time of the baby’s death. Has she simply invented these symptoms and has fooled the medical professionals ever since?”

Tunstill, 26, of Wellington Court, Burnley, denies murder.

The jury is expected to retire to consider its verdict on Monday.

(Proceeding)