Frozen baby woman jailed for 8 years

A woman who killed three of her own babies - and hid two of the bodies in a freezer - has been jailed for eight years after a trial that has gripped France.

Despite being convicted of murdering three infants, Véronique Courjault (above right) was given a lenient sentence after the court was told that she retained the support and affection of Jean-Louis, her husband (above left), and of their two adolescent boys, aged 12 and 14.

Psychologists said she suffered from a condition that leads some women to reject the reality of their pregnancy.

Courjault, now 41, had hidden all three pregnancies from her husband and friends - indeed, she only revealed that she had killed and burned a third baby while being questioned about the deaths of the other two.

The case - 'l'affaire des bebes congeles' as it is known in France - caused a sensation when it first came to light in 2006.

The respectable middle-class couple were living in Seoul at the time, where Jean-Louis worked for a South Korean car company. Veronique was away in France with the couple's two children on their annual summer holiday when Jean-Louis, looking for frozen mackerel in the freezer, discovered two tiny corpses wrapped in plastic.

He fled after the gruesome discovery and joined his family in France where the couple denied any knowledge of the two infants. But the French authorities used DNA to establish that the Courjaults were the birth parents of the two babies. Under interrogation, Veronique confessed to killing the babies shortly after giving birth to them alone in 2002 and 2003: she subsequently admitted to murdering a third infant she had borne in France several years earlier.

Her husband was cleared of any involvement in the case.

It took a jury in Tours eight hours to convict Courjault of smothering the two children and hiding their bodies. She was also found guilty of killing and burning the body of a third child in 1999. Her trial lasted less than two weeks.

After spending three years in custody awaiting trial, Courjault could now be freed within 24 months. ·