A French woman has gone on trial for premeditated murder after leaving her 15-month old daughter to die on a beach in Northern France. 
 
 Fabienne Kabou, 39, admitted leaving her only child – named Adélaïde after her grandmother - in freezing conditions on the Berck-sur-Mer beach as the tide came in during a hearing following the incident in November 2013. 
 
 Ms Kabou is said to have taken a train from Paris to the Channel coast, and on arrival had allegedly asked locals about tide times, Le Monde reported. 
 
 On the same evening she is accused of taking the girl to the beach – which she allegedly told detectives she chose because “even the name sounded sad” – and returning without her. A fisherman discovered the child's body the following morning. 
 
 Although Ms Kabou admitted to leaving the girl shortly after she was arrested, subsequent psychiatric analysis said the defendant had "severely impaired judgement due to paranoid delusions", Le Figaro reported. 
 
 However, psychiatrists found the woman was not clinically insane, so a trial is being held to decide the woman's guilt. 
 
 During a hearing at the Boulogne-sur-Mer court on 23 December 2013, Ms Kabou described how she had felt driven by a relentless force, according to Le Parisien. 
 
 She explained: “I'm still standing, I hold her against me and then I say ‘no, no, no’, I keep saying no, I do not know why. I cried. It’s as if I was telling someone I could not do a thing like that, but I did.” 
 
 Ms Kabou was previously living in a Paris workshop with sculptor Michael Lafon, who was 30 years her senior and the father to her child. 
 
 She had become pregnant twice before – both times suffering miscarriages – and gave birth to the third child alone in the workshop. 
 
 Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 show all Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 30 per cent of people deal with anxiety by talking to a friend or relative, or by going for a walk. Getty 
 
 2/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report Almost one in five people feel anxious all or a lot of the time. PA 
 
 3/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 22 per cent of women feel anxious a lot or all of the time, compared to 15 per cent of men. Roman Levin/Flickr Creative Commons 
 
 4/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 45 per cent of people who feel anxious in everyday life cite financial issues as their biggest cause of worry. Getty 
 
 5/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report And 26 per cent of people who feel anxious say fearing for the welfare of their children and loved ones leaves them burdened with worry. And 26 per cent of people say fearing for the welfare of their children and loved ones leaves them burdened with anxiety. 
 
 6/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 27 per cent of people who suffer from anxiety say work issues, such as long hours, are the source of the problem. Getty 
 
 7/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report But 16 per cent use alcohol to cope, while 10 per cent turn to cigarettes in the face of anxiety. Unemployed people are more likely to resort to these harmful strategies: 27 per cent use alcohol and 23 per cent use cigarettes. AFP/Getty 
 
 8/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report Only seven per cent of people who say they suffer from anxiety seek help from their GP. Getty 
 
 9/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report People are thought to be more anxious than they were five years ago. Alessandra/Flickr Creative Commons 
 
 10/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report The stresses of modern life are thought to have created "The Age of Anxiety". Getty 
 
 The pair had never registered the birth of the girl, so officially she did not exist. According to three experts on the case this was because the woman believed her daughter to be in great danger. 
 
 Drs Daniel Zagury, Roland Coutanceau and Mourassis Wilquin examined the woman – who was born to a wealthy Catholic family in Dakar, Senegal - and found she had “great intelligence” and “an IQ well above average”. 
 
 However, they were also said to be struck by the faith she placed in irrational beliefs such as witchcraft, according to Le Monde. 
 
 Ms Kabou reportedly felt ill and often had hallucinations, which she had documented in a journal. She also wrote how she could hear the voices of dead relatives who she believed intended to harm her, the newspaper said. 
 
 The trial is expected to take a week and, if found guilty, Ms Kabou could recieve a life sentence.
– The Telegraph reported yesterday on a crazy court case in the UK: After a pregnant Italian woman, in town for business, had a panic attack, social service workers in Essex got a court order allowing the woman to be forcibly sedated and undergo a C-section so they could take her baby. Fifteen months later, the little girl is still with social service workers, who won't return her to her mother. The case is now "an international legal row," the Telegraph says, and the anonymous woman's lawyers call it "unprecedented." The woman was in Britain in July 2012 for an airline training course, and called police when she suffered the panic attack. They arrived while she was on the phone with her mother, who told police the woman suffered from bipolar disorder and was off her medication, according to a Telegraph columnist. Police took her to a psychiatric facility, and restrained her under the Mental Health Act when she said she wanted to go back to her hotel. She underwent the C-section after having been there five weeks. The case is ongoing; the mother says she has made a full recovery, but a judge nonetheless ruled that her daughter should be put up for adoption. More on the case here and here.