A WOMAN accused of murdering her newborn baby and dumping it in a kitchen bin told police she wasn’t behaving as she normally would when she delivered the baby alone in the bathroom.

Preston Crown Court heard Rachel Tunstill, 26, said she believed she had suffered a miscarriage and did not know how far into the pregnancy she was when she delivered her daughter Mia on the toilet at the flat she shared with her partner in Wellington Court, Burnley.

Tunstill, who has a degree in psychology and a masters in forensic psychology, said she checked the infant for signs of life but could not find any.

She then said she wrapped the child in two carrier bags and placed it in the kitchen bin, the court heard.

She didn’t go back to the bin at any point and did not tell her partner Ryan Kelly, 31, what had happened.

In a recorded police interview, Tunstill said: “It is awful. I disposed, I put a baby, a foetus, something that had come from me, in a bin.

“I can’t understand why I did it.

“It is so far out of my normal character and my normal behaviour to do something like that.

“I should have phoned an ambulance. I should have phoned somebody.

“My first port of call should have been an ambulance and I should have been saying I was in a lot of pain and I didn’t know what was wrong with me.”

After delivering the baby on Saturday January 14, Tunstill, who denies murder and was the deputy manager at Benjamin House Care Home in Burnley, said she cleaned the bathroom, and went to bed.

The court heard the following day she stayed at home but on the Monday she went to hospital as she did not feel the miscarriage was complete.

Following her arrest she told officers she was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome as a child and would ordinarily approach things in a logical way.

But she said the pain and emotion she was experiencing meant she was unable to tackle the situation in that way.

(Proceeding)