Woman who strangled her eight babies sentenced

Even though the prosecution had asked for an 18-year sentence for Dominique Cottrez, 51, she still managed to get nine years for the crime.

The defence on the other hand had argued that the former health worker should be acquitted because of her troubled mental state.

Cottrez earlier confessed to suffocating her children after giving birth secretly at home near Lille.

She then buried the bodies in the garden of her parents' home and at her own home nearby in Villers-au-Tertre.

The former nursing assistant had previously said she had a long incestuous relationship with her father and that she feared each baby might be his.

However, during the trial she did not talk about the relationship.

Cottrez, who is obese, also said that from a young age she had battled with her weight and was mocked by other children at school.

She apparently managed to conceal her pregnancies from everyone, including her doctor and her husband, because of her obesity.