Left to freeze (From Penarth Times)

Left to freeze

PROSECUTORS have reve- aled why they decided they had to go to court over the case of the Penarth woman who abandoned her baby in a garden.

As the 30-year-old woman began a six-month jail sentence this week, the Crown Prosecution Service has explained the reasons why it decided on court action.

In many baby abandonment cases, police and CPS decide that the mother needs help and counselling, rather than punishment.

In this case, the mother said she had been suffering from post-natal depression.

But at Newport Crown Court this week, a judge was scathing of the mother's excuse and decided she had abandoned her baby simply because he got in the way of her lifestyle.

The 12-week-old baby, called Oliver by police officers, was found by Sarah Langley outside her house in Collingwood Crescent, Newport, on a cold January night. He had been left in a buggy.

Gwent Police spent £20,000 in an effort to track down Oliver's parents, but eventually his mother called them herself.

The father of the baby, who was estranged from the mother, did not know that Oliver had been abandoned.

The woman told him and others that the baby was staying with relatives.

It is thought that no other police force in Britain has had to deal with an abandonment case where the identity of the child has remained unknown for so long.

But it was the premeditated and dangerous way the baby was abandoned which influenced the CPS when they had to decide what to do with the mother once she had come forward.

The head of Gwent CPS said the fact that baby Oliver could have died after being dumped influenced their decision to prosecute the mother.

Chris Woolly: "What influenced us was this was deliberate abandonment of a baby. "She came off the motorway in Newport.

"The fact she decided to do it in Newport rather than Cardiff may have been done to frustrate any of her friends knowing about the baby.

"It was also a cold windy night, the baby was in a buggy in a baby grow and there was the possibility of the baby perishing that night."

He added: "There was no move from the mother to alert the occupants of the house that he was there.

"She says that she had put it out of her mind and it appears she was having a normal life for the next four months or so.

"The lady did decide to contact the police, but she really had no option - the net was closing in at that stage."

"The police investigation was coming to a head and they would have identified her.

"Social Services were also getting concerned about the whereabouts of the baby.

"A week or so later, there was due to be a family court hearing where she may have had to confess she didn't have the baby," he added.

"All the while this was going on, the father of the baby was trying to get access.

"All the time he was being fobbed off, when she knew full well the baby had been abandoned.

"Had it not have been the dogged persistence by the police and social services, this baby would have grown up without a date of birth and without knowing anything about his family background."