A BORN-again Christian convinced she was the Virgin Mary strangled her baby then threw him off a first-floor balcony.

Regular churchgoer Ababa Adame-Tareke, aged 29, of Hillcrest Close, Sydenham, was convinced her husband was Jesus Christ and had ordered her to kill 19-month-old Tommy Bakumo-Abraham.

When friends from the Bethal Pentecostal Church, in Vauxhall, visited the bible study host on April 28 last year, they asked where Tommy was.

Schizophrenic Miss Adame-Tareke said she had killed the child and thrown him off the balcony.

Her friends found the child lying face down in the garden of the flat below and Tommy was pronounced dead at Lewisham Hospital.

Miss Adame-Tareke admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at the Old Bailey on April 3 and was given a three-year community rehabilitation order. She told a psychiatrist at Lewisham Hospital: "I have killed my baby to save the world."

She said her husband had told her to do it and she had seen him on television.

Prosecuting, Simon Denison said: "In April she told the boy's father Tommy was the anointed one. She said she was a born-again Christian, her husband was Jesus and her name was Mary.

"It was obvious she was suffering from delusions."

On the day of Tommy's death she dumped the baby's clothing outside her home.

Sentencing her, Judge Graham Boal said: "You took the life of your son at a time when your ability to make decisions was substantially impaired by your mental condition.

"When you were mentally ill you acted in a way contrary to the natural instincts of every mother. It is in the public interest to take steps as can best ensure you never offend again."

She will be admitted to the Bracton Centre in the old Bexley Hospital site, Dartford.