New York [US], September 11: A mother jailed for injecting her non-diabetic infant daughter with insulin, triggering a life-threatening medical episode, has been released from custody.
The diabetic woman was sentenced in 2025 to two years and 10 months' imprisonment for administering poison that endangers life or inflicts grievous bodily harm, with a non-parole period of one year and five months.
She admitted injecting her daughter, then 16 months old, with insulin in 2020, causing a life-threatening episode of hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar).
But she was released from custody this week after an appeal court agreed her moral culpability was improperly assessed by the NSW District Court.
Her traumatic and dysfunctional past - coupled with her personality development and psychiatric disorders, and limited coping skills under stress - significantly reduced her moral culpability for the offending, Court of Criminal Appeal Justice Belinda Rigg said.
The mother-of-three had a diagnosis of Factitious Disorder imposed on another, previously known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
It is a serious mental health condition where a person intentionally fakes, exaggerates, or induces physical or psychological illness in someone else to gain attention.
"(The sentencing judge) failed to consider the impact of any reduction in the applicant's moral culpability on the need for adequate punishment of the applicant and the need to denounce her crime," Justice Rigg wrote in the appeal decision.
The court heard the woman knew her actions could have caused her daughter's death and that she only intended to cause bodily harm.
After deliberately injecting her daughter with insulin using an insulin pen at their home, she called triple zero when the child started having seizures.
Paramedics found the girl in critical condition with blood sugar levels so low they would not register on their equipment.
After being treated in hospital, she made a quick recovery.
But the cause of the hypoglycaemia then remained unknown.
The woman returned to hospital with her daughter due to ongoing coughs and fevers about a month later.
She refused to engage with medical staff after she learned they were suspicious about her daughter being previously injected with insulin.
The child was subsequently removed from the woman's care, along with her other children, amid a police investigation that led to her prosecution.
She has had no contact with her children since.
Her identity cannot be published due to a legal restriction protecting child victims of crime.
Justice Rigg set aside the 2025 sentence and re-sentenced the woman to one year and 10 months behind bars from June 2025, with a non-parole period of 11 months that expired in May.
She has since been released from custody, according to corrective services.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Cooperation
