Police ScotlandA mum jailed for killing her baby has failed in a bid to stop herself from being extradited to Lithuania to serve time for murdering another child.
Lawyers for Ineta Gavenaite – formerly known as Ineta Dzinguviene – asked judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh to overturn a decision made by a sheriff to send her back to the Eastern European state.
Gavenaite – who was formerly called Dzinguviene – was given an eight-and-a-half-year jail term in June 2023 after pleading guilty to a charge of being responsible for the culpable homicide of her child, Paulius, in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, in April 2010.
She smothered the child with cling film the day after she gave birth to him.
Gavenaite was originally convicted of murder in 2011. But appeal judges quashed the conviction after it emerged she was suffering from severe mental illness at the time of Paulius’s death.
She was also given a 15-year sentence in her Lithuanian homeland for murdering her three-year-old daughter, Paulina, there in 2009.
Now the Lithuanian authorities want Gavenaite returned there to serve the 15-year term. In May 2025, a sheriff in Edinburgh consented to her being sent back there.
This prompted the appeal to the higher court in Edinburgh. Defence advocate Shelagh McCall KC told appeal judges Lady Wise, Lord Clark and Lord Ericht that it would breach her client’s human rights if she were returned to Lithuania.
She argued that there was inadequate provision within the Lithuanian prison system to help deal with Gavenaite’s complex PTSD and depression issues.
She also argued that it would be oppressive to extradite her from Scotland as she had been in a Scottish jail for four years and eight months longer than her eight-and-a-half-year jail term.
The Scottish court heard the Lithuanian authorities would not deduct that extra time served by Gavenaite from their 15-year term.
However, in a written judgement published by the appeal court on Tuesday, Lady Wise and her colleagues upheld the earlier decision made by the sheriff.
She wrote: “The sheriff in this case appears to have taken particular care to ensure that he understood the arguments against extradition and secured additional information to that end before reaching a final decision.
“For the reasons given, although we shall grant leave to appeal in respect of both grounds, the appeal and associated devolution minute are refused.”
Dzinguviene – as she was then called – was found guilty of murder in Fraserburgh in 2010 and was jailed for life.
However, the murder conviction was quashed and she has now admitted the culpable homicide of her son on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Dzinguviene, now 40, was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow two years ago.
The jail term was cut from ten years due to the guilty plea and will be backdated to April 2010 when Dzinguviene was first remanded in custody.
It meant she effectively served the sentence.
The then 26-year-old was jailed for a minimum of 15 years at the High Court in Glasgow in June 2011, after the death of her son, who was later named Paulius Dzingus.
While undergoing therapy in prison, she disclosed details of a traumatic childhood and an abusive relationship.
The case was referred back to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh and the murder conviction was overturned.
Psychiatrists diagnosed her as suffering from conditions including post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the time of the killing.
In the 2023 case, judge Lady Poole said: “You are now 38 years old and have had a very difficult life.
“Although your culpability at the time was diminished by your mental state, the harm you caused was extreme. You took the life of your son.
“He was a newborn baby and you deprived him of his life.
“After you killed him, you hid his body in a bag amongst rubbish in the common stairway where you lived.”
She said: “Killing a defenceless baby cannot be tolerated and you must be punished for what you did.”
Now Gavenaite is set to return home.
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