Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
A newborn baby girl found wrapped in a towel in January on an east London street has been shown by DNA testing to be the full sibling of two other infants abandoned in the same part of the city.
Despite an intensive police search, the parents of baby ‘Elsa’, and her siblings ‘Harry’ – a boy – and ‘Roman’ – a girl – who were discovered in 2017 and 2019 respectively, have not yet been found.
The fact that three full siblings had been abandoned over a period of seven years could only be publicised following a legal battle by the BBC and PA Media, who argued that the family court judge overseeing the case should permit reporting of this highly unusual fact as a matter of significant public interest. The local authority and the baby girl’s court-appointed guardian opposed reporting.
The East London Family Court is part of a pilot promoting greater scrutiny of the family justice system. Despite the presumption under the pilot being that journalists can report under a Transparency Order – the opposite of the usual ban or reporting when a case is heard in private – the position taken against publication by the council and the Guardian meant the journalists had to attend two further hearings to convince the judge that reporting was justified.
The BBC’s Sanchia Berg told Tortoise: “The original Transparency Order prevented us reporting the existence of the DNA tests. We applied to report the link. The [legal] process was – as you would expect – quite drawn out.”
Berg said that the police attended the final hearing at the request of Her Honour Judge Carol Atkinson, the most senior judge at the East London Family Court, who “was careful to take into consideration the ongoing investigation.”
While the Metropolitan Police was neutral as to whether the DNA link should be reported, they told the court that they had no wish to “inadvertently promote or encourage struggling mothers to abandon unwanted babies in public spaces.”
The judge was clear that the balance landed in favour of reporting.
“Abandonment of a baby in this country is a very, very unusual event,” Atkinson said, adding that the fact three full siblings had been simply left in the open by their parents was “of enormous interest” and that refusing to permit reporting would restrict open justice.
Baby Elsa was still attached to her umbilical cord, indicating that she may have been no more than an hour old when she was discovered on a street corner in the London borough of Newham.
Police are appealing for the mother to come forward.
