The birth mother of William Tyrrell has blamed mental health issues for spitting at a police officer during an incident at a Sydney shopping centre last month.
Karlie Ann Erlington Tyrrell, 29, faced Burwood Local Court on Monday after entering a guilty plea earlier in the month.
She was due to be sentenced on one charge of assaulting an officer and using offensive language in a public place, but the case was adjourned and a pre-sentence report ordered.
Ms Tyrrell, who has a long criminal history, was arrested in a Ryde shopping centre after security personnel were forced to contact police “to assist with a woman acting aggressively towards customers” on December 22 last year.
According to police facts, she became agitated when an officer asked one child in her company about marks on his legs. She then spat on a second officer’s right eyebrow and cheek after shouting: “Ryde coppers lost my son you c**ts.”
In a handwritten note tendered on Monday, the mother blamed her panic attacks for the assault.
“I recently found out I suffer from panic attacks which played a major part into my behaviour but I’m not making any excuses,” she wrote.
Ms Tyrrell will learn her fate on March 19 when sentencing proceedings continue.
Karlie Tyrrell blamed her panic attacks for spitting at a police officer during an incident at a suburban Sydney shopping centre last month.
Her three-year-old child, William, disappeared from his foster grandmother’s yard in Kendall on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, on the morning of September 12, 2014.
Speaking with 9 News, Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubelin of the NSW Police Homicide Squad recently said it was “highly likely” police had already come across the perpetrator of the crime.
WATCH: Last year, a bombshell court ruling revealed William was in foster care at the time of his disappearance. Post continues…
Det. Jubelin added that police have turned their attention to a group of just a few hundred persons of interest, narrowed down from a list of thousands.
“The strongest likelihood is that we’ve already got the name of the person involved,” he said.
“I would be sweating.”
He later added: “Even if it is one person involved, I am sure that there’s people close to that person that have suspicions about that person. They’re the people that we’re interested in speaking to.”
An unprecedented award of $1 million has been offered by the NSW government for any information leading to the recovery of the missing toddler.
