The Director of Public Prosecutions has rejected a bid by defence lawyers to have charges dropped against a young mother accused of killing and abandoning her newborn baby under a tree.
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The mother appeared briefly in the Supreme Court on Friday, where Justice Lex Lasry was told the DPP had refused an application to discontinue the case on December 4.
Crown prosecutor Mark Rochford, QC, told the court the DPP had offered to settle the case if the mother pleaded guilty to a lesser charge than child homicide or manslaughter.
"This case is perfectly capable of resolution," Mr Rochford said.
He said the appropriate way to settle the matter would be for the mother to plead guilty to a lesser charge, but did not disclose to the court what the lesser charge would be.
Justice Lasry adjourned the case for a further directions hearing on February 20 to allow the DPP and the mother's Legal Aid lawyers more time to discuss the matter.
Pathologist Dr Michael Burke, from the Victorian Institute for Forensic Medicine, had given evidence at an earlier committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court that the baby's lungs, heart and brain looked normal, but acknowledged it was possible she could have been born hypoxic.
The mother's defence lawyers argued the charge should be dismissed because it could not be certain she caused the baby's death.
The mother is due to stand trial in August next year, charged with child homicide, if the matter cannot be resolved.
Justice Lasry extended a suppression order on Friday preventing the media from reporting anything that might identify the teenager, other than her family's religion. The suburb where the baby's body was found is also suppressed.
The Magistrates Court hearing was told the teenager did not realise she was pregnant until the baby's head emerged, in the early hours of February 26, and that she gave birth unassisted, on plastic bags covering the floor of her family home.
Moments after giving birth the baby made a noise and the mother put a hand over her daughter's mouth for fear more noises would wake members of the teenager's Catholic family. But soon after she realised the baby was not breathing.
The mother left the body of her baby under a tree on a nature strip, where it was found by police on March 6.
