A child found in a bag in east London earlier this year has two siblings who were abandoned in similar circumstances, it can be revealed.
The parents of the three children are yet to be identified, with the Metropolitan Police reiterating their call for anyone with information to come forward.
A judge at a family court has ruled it can be reported.
Judge Carol Atkinson said on Monday at East London Family Court that it can be published that the child, known as Baby Elsa, has a brother and a sister who were discovered alone in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
The discovery of the three infants, who were found within a few miles of each other:
Baby Elsa
Baby Elsa was found in freezing temperatures in East Ham on the night of January 18 this year.
It is believed she was less than an hour old when she was found by a dog walker, wrapped in a towel in a reusable shopping bag with her umbilical cord still attached.
She was discovered at the junction of Greenway and High Street South, and was named Elsa by hospital staff who cared for her, in reference to the freezing temperatures in which she was found and the character from the film Frozen.
The Metropolitan Police said at the time it was “highly likely” that Elsa was born after a “concealed pregnancy”.
The woman who left Elsa was spotted entering the Greenway from the High Street South entrance at around 8.45pm on the night of January 18, around half an hour before she was found.
Appealing for her mother to come forward in January, Chief Superintendent Simon Crick, lead for policing in Newham, urged anyone with information to urgently get in touch.
The BBC reported that a previous court hearing was told it took doctors three hours to record Elsa’s temperature due to the cold, with the Met Office confirming temperatures dropped as low as minus 4C on the night.
A court-appointed guardian asked the court at the earlier hearing to change the name picked by hospital staff, but Judge Atkinson refused the request as it gave the child something to “hang on to”.
Barristers for Newham London Borough Council told the court in April that due to ongoing investigation into the identity of her parents, no final decision on her care could be made, with a future hearing expected at a later date.
Baby Roman
Baby Roman was also found in freezing temperatures just under five years earlier.
Police were called to a park area close to Roman Road and Saxon Road in East Ham at around 10.15pm on January 30 2019.
The force said at the time that the baby was found wrapped in a white towel which was put in a shopping bag and then placed on the ground next to a bench in the small children’s playpark. No attempt had been made to hide her.
She was found by a dog walker, Rima Zvaliauskas, who told the BBC in 2019 that she was “shocked and stressed” by the discovery after hearing a noise coming from a bag.
Roman – not her real name – has since been adopted.
Baby Harry
Baby Harry was found wrapped in a white blanket and abandoned in a park on September 17 2017.
The boy, named Harry by medical staff, was discovered in an area off Balaam Road in Plaistow, east London.
Harry – not his real name – was cared for at a hospital before being discharged and has since been adopted.
How journalists were allowed to report Baby Elsa’s family court hearing
Following an application by the PA news agency and the BBC, Judge Carol Atkinson said on Monday at East London Family Court that it could be published that the child, known as Baby Elsa, has a brother and a sister who were discovered in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
It comes following efforts to increase transparency in the family court system.
Previously, reporters have had access to courts dealing with sensitive matters involving children, despite them being closed to the public.
However, reporting has been highly restricted to only what a judge will allow, to protect the identities of those involved.
Under a new transparency pilot scheme, introduced last year, accredited journalists and legal bloggers could access three family courts – Leeds, Cardiff and Carlisle – to report on cases more freely.
This was expanded earlier this year to allow accredited journalists and legal bloggers to report on cases to 16 courts across England and Wales as they happen, as they would do in the criminal courts.
This includes East London Family Court, as well as Manchester, Nottingham, the Central Family Court in London and others.
While the identities of the families and certain professionals involved remain protected, judges can set out what details may be reported under a Transparency Order, with journalists also allowed to access some documents.
Families can also talk to a journalist about their case, without risking punishment for contempt of court.
However, judges can still decide that some cases may not be reported on or that reporting should be postponed in certain circumstances.
In Baby Elsa’s case, the PA news agency and the BBC applied for the court to vary the terms of the Transparency Order to allow reporting that she has two siblings and other details.
Judge Atkinson ruled on Monday that reporting the information was in the public interest.
She said: “There is a clear public interest in reporting this story.
“The abandonment of a baby in this country is a very, very unusual event and there are years where there are no children abandoned, and because of that it is the story of the abandoning of a child that is of public interest.
“It is, for the same reason, in our current society, of enormous interest and importance that people know that there is a mother and father out there who felt the need to relinquish their children in this way, three times, and that is of considerable interest, it seems to me.
“If I restrict these rights and the reporting of that story, I think that does impact on public consciousness of these sorts of matters. It restricts the openness of justice.”
