Police fear mother might abandon fourth baby but close in on her location
Police have said they are doing “everything we possibly can” to find the mother of three babies abandoned in London over a seven-year period – amid fears a fourth child may be found.
Officers have focused their inquiries on just 400 homes in an area of east London near to where two of the babies were discovered, with members of the public being asked for voluntary DNA samples to help locate the mother.
Experts believe the person who abandoned the young children, who may or may not be the mother, could have travelled from one of the properties in a specified area of East Ham and Plaistow.
The three babies – named Harry, Roman and Elsa – were abandoned in 2017, 2019 and 2024, respectively. They were all found within a few miles of each other.
A full DNA profile of the mother has been established by investigators, but despite this, hundreds of hours of CCTV footage and a £20,000 reward being offered earlier this year, she remains unidentified.
Baby Roman. Pic: Met Police/PA
Each child was discovered in an area where there are no CCTV cameras and the case’s senior investigating officer said police have concluded the person who abandoned the babies “did not want to be found”.
Addressing the possibility of another child, Detective Inspector Jamie Humm added: “We can’t be blind to the fact that there may be a fourth [baby], and certainly the passage of time and the cycles of nine months it would take to potentially get pregnant and birth a child, mean that we cannot discount that.
“That means, again, I’m appealing to the public, because if there is another abandoned child, that child may not be as fortunate as Elsa and her siblings.”
‘We’re treating the mum as a victim,’ say police
DI Humm also said he believes the mother “is in danger”.
He continued: “The hypothesis that, as senior investigating officer, I believe is most likely, is that the mother of these children is vulnerable, is in danger, and is in a position where they feel that they are unable to come forward for whatever reason.
“We are treating mum as a victim in this case, and we are on standby to support her with everything she needs.”
The Boots bag Baby Elsa was found abandoned in. Pic: Met Police/PA
His comments came as Noel McHugh, national senior investigating officer adviser for the South East at the National Crime Agency, said it was a “miracle” the children survived because of the conditions they were abandoned in.
Elsa was found wrapped in a towel in a reusable shopping bag at the junction of Greenway and High Street South in East Ham, in sub-zero temperatures, on 18 January last year.
More from Sky News:
Ben & Jerry’s co-founder arrested
British teen arrested on drug trafficking charges in Georgia
The Greenway junction where Elsa was discovered. Pic: PA
A map of where the abandoned babies were found in east London
Roman was found in similar circumstances a short distance away in a play area off Roman Road, Newham, in late January 2019, as snow gripped the capital.
The eldest of the three, Harry, was found wrapped in a white blanket in Balaam Street, Plaistow, in September 2017.
Mr McHugh said: “We are doing everything that we possibly can to work through the information, the intelligence that is before us, to understand it, and that is why they [the police] are working on this really focused area.”
A police officer carrying out house-to-house enquiries in Plaistow. Pic: PA
Roman and Harry – not their real names – have already been adopted. Family court proceedings related to Elsa are continuing.
The court was previously told Elsa’s birth cannot be registered, and no final decision on her care has been made due to the ongoing investigation.
UK
Home secretary admits illegal immigration numbers still ‘too high’ under Labour – but says Farage can ‘sod off’
The home secretary has admitted the UK’s illegal immigrant numbers are “too high” – but said Nigel Farage can “sod off” after he claimed she sounded like a Reform supporter.
Shabana Mahmood, speaking just after announcing a major policy change on migration, said she was “horrified” by the 27% increase of irregular arrivals in the year to June.
Politics latest: Labour MPs attack asylum plans
Speaking to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby, the home secretary said: “I acknowledge the numbers are too high, and they’ve gone up, and I want to bring them down.
“I’m impatient to bring those numbers down.”
She refused to “set arbitrary numbers” on how much she wanted to bring illegal migration down to.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Beth Rigby: The two big problems with Labour’s asylum plan
Earlier on Monday, Ms Mahmood announced a new direction in Labour’s plan to crack down on asylum seekers.
The “restoring order and control” plan includes:
• The removal of more families with children – either voluntarily through cash incentives up to £3,000, or by force;
• Quadrupling the time successful asylum seekers must wait to claim permanent residency in the UK, from five years to 20;
• Removing the legal obligation to provide financial support to asylum seekers, so those with the right to work but choose not to will receive no support;
• Setting up a new appeals body to significantly speed up the time it takes to decide whether to refuse an asylum application;
• Reforming how the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is interpreted in immigration cases;
• Banning visas for countries refusing to accept deportees;
• And the establishment of new safe and legal refugee routes.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Home secretary announces details on asylum reform
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the plan was much like something his party would put forward, and said Ms Mahmood sounded like a Reform supporter.
The home secretary responded with her usual frankness, telling Rigby: “Nigel Farage can sod off. I’m not interested in anything he’s got to say.
“He’s making mischief. So I’m not going to let him live forever in my head.”
Read more:
How the UK and Denmark’s immigration policies compare
Botched effort to flush out plotters has backfired and now Labour MPs fear wipe out
Nigel Farage said the home secretary was sounding like a Reform supporter
She earlier announced refugee status would be temporary, only lasting two and a half years before a review, and they would have to be in the UK for 20 years before getting permanent settled status, instead of the current five years.
Ms Mahmood said Reform wanted to “rip up” indefinite leave to remain altogether, which she called “immoral” and “deeply shameful”.
The home secretary, who is a practising Muslim, was born in Birmingham to her Pakistani parents.
Earlier, in the House of Commons, she said she sees the division that migration and the asylum system are creating across the country. She told MPs she regularly endures racial slurs.
BBC chair Samir Shah has said there is “no basis for a defamation case and we are determined to fight this” – after Donald Trump said he would sue the corporation for between $1bn and $5bn.
It comes after the US president confirmed on Saturday he would be taking legal action against the broadcaster over the editing of his speech on Panorama – despite an apology from the BBC.
Samir Shah said the BBC’s position ‘has not changed’. Pic: Reuters
In an email to staff, Mr Shah said: “There is a lot being written, said and speculated upon about the possibility of legal action, including potential costs or settlements.
“In all this we are, of course, acutely aware of the privilege of our funding and the need to protect our licence fee payers, the British public.
“I want to be very clear with you – our position has not changed. There is no basis for a defamation case and we are determined to fight this.”
👉 Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app 👈
On Saturday, President Trump told reporters legal action would come in the following days.
“We’ll sue them. We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion (£792m) and five billion dollars (£3.79bn), probably sometime next week,” he said.
“We have to do it, they’ve even admitted that they cheated. Not that they couldn’t have not done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”
Read more from Sky News:
Amber cold health alert now issued for parts of UK until Saturday
Sheikh Hasina sentenced to death for crimes against humanity
The BBC on Thursday said the edit of Mr Trump’s speech on 6 January 2021 had given the “mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”.
The broadcaster apologised and said the splicing of the speech was an “error of judgment” but refused to pay financial compensation after the US leader’s lawyers threatened to sue for one billion dollars in damages unless a retraction and apology were published.
Deborah Turness. Pic: Reuters
Tim Davie. Pic: PA
The Panorama scandal prompted the resignations of two of the BBC’s most senior executives – director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness.
The broadcaster has said it will not air the Panorama episode Trump: A Second Chance? again, and published a retraction on the show’s webpage on Thursday.
A British man who hacked the X accounts of celebrities in a bid to con people out of Bitcoin, has been ordered to repay £4.1m-worth of the cryptocurrency, prosecutors say.
Joseph James O’Connor, 26, was jailed in the United States for five years in 2023 after he pleaded guilty to charges including computer intrusion, wire fraud and extortion.
He was arrested in Spain in 2021 and extradited after the country’s high court ruled the US was best placed to prosecute because the evidence and victims were there.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Monday it had obtained a civil recovery order to seize 42 Bitcoin and other crypto assets linked to the scam, in which O’Connor used hijacked accounts to solicit digital currency and threaten celebrities.
The July 2020 hack compromised accounts of high-profile figures including former US presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
O’Connor and his co-conspirators stole more than $794,000 (£629,000) of cryptocurrency after using the hacked accounts to ask people to send $1,000 in Bitcoin to receive double back.
Prosecutor Adrian Foster said the civil recovery order showed that “even when someone is not convicted in the UK, we are still able to ensure they do not benefit from their criminality”.
The order, which valued O’Connor’s assets at around £4.1m, was made last week, following a freeze placed on the hacker’s property, which prosecutors secured during extradition proceedings.
Barack Obama was one of the famous people to have their Twitter account hacked
Elon Musk was among those targeted by scammers in a Twitter hack
Read more on Sky News:
‘Wealth goddess’ jailed over Bitcoin billions
Arrests over alleged crypto scam
A court-appointed trustee will liquidate his assets, the CPS said.
The attack also compromised the X (then Twitter) accounts of other high-profile figures including Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, investor Warren Buffett, and media personality and businesswoman Kim Kardashian.
The hack prompted the social media platform to temporarily freeze some accounts.
X said 130 accounts were targeted, with 45 used to send tweets.
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024