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French court jails mother who murdered five of her babies

At the end of a week-long trial, a court in Bordeaux has sentenced Ramona Canete, 37, to eight years in prison for murdering over a period of ten years five of her newborn babies whose bodies she hid from her family in a freezer.

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A French court has sentenced a mother to eight years in jail for drowning five of her newborn babies and then hiding them in a freezer, reports BBC News.

Sobbing in court, Romana Canete, 37, asked for "forgiveness" at her trial in Bordeaux, south-west France.

She admitted giving birth in a bathtub at her home in Louchats, some 40 kilomtres (25 miles) from Bordeaux, and leaving the babies to die in the water.

One of Canete's two teenage daughters found one baby in a bag in the freezer.

Police later found the other bodies there, after Romana Canete's husband Juan Carlos had contacted them, AFP news agency reports.

The grim discovery was made in March 2015, and Romana has already spent three years in detention.

The births and subsequent drownings are thought to have taken place over the previous 10 years, according to French media reports.

She is not expected to serve the full eight years, and will have five years of welfare supervision after her release.

Juan Carlos, a farm worker, said he was completely unaware of his wife's pregnancies. Experts quoted by the presiding judge described him as "possessive" and "jealous", French news website Le Point reports.

Read more of this report from BBC News.