ABANDONED in a shopping bag as temperatures dipped to –4C, newborn baby Elsa appeared all alone in the world.
She was wrapped only in a white towel, her umbilical cord still attached, when her pitiful cries alerted a passing dog walker.
Baby Harry was found in a park ‘carefully wrapped in a white blanket’ on September 17, 2017PA
PABaby Roman was found by dog walkers at a kids’ play area on January 31, 2019[/caption]
Simon JonesBaby Elsa was found in a shopping bag by a dog walker on January 18, 2024[/caption]
But as police began searching for Elsa’s parents, they were confronted with a startling revelation.
Little Elsa was in fact far from alone. DNA tests revealed that two other newborns abandoned in parks nearby over a seven-year span were her siblings, a brother named Harry and a sister named Roman.
And it was something of a miracle that the children, with the same mother and father, had all survived being left in freezing weather.
So why would their parents give up the newborns to the hands of fate? The answer lies somewhere amid the rows of soot-darkened Victorian terraces that stretch for miles across the Borough of Newham, in London’s East End.
Elsa was less than an hour old when a stranger chanced upon her where the Greenway cycle route meets the often traffic-clogged High Street South in East Ham.
It was around 9.15pm on the bitterly cold evening of January 18 this year.
The Good Samaritan tried their best to keep the baby warm as emergency services raced to the scene. Arriving at hospital she would be given the name Elsa after the Disney princess in 2013 film Frozen.
‘Crying for her life’
She was so cold that medics took three hours to record her temperature. Yet, in testament to the human spirit, she survived. Elsa weighed 6lb 6oz and doctors believe she was a full-term baby.
Meanwhile, police were searching for her parents to offer them help and support.
CCTV footage was combed through, doors knocked on and an appeal launched — yet five months on and officers have still not tracked down the parents.
Then this week came the extraordinary revelation that Elsa was from a family of abandoned babies.
At the spot where she was found, local electrician Mahmad Eshan told me: “I’m still in shock.”
The 55-year-old dad of three added: “The mother might be suffering from depression or other mental health problems. We can only speculate.”
Mahmad added of what is one of London’s poorest boroughs: “I feel safe here. Nothing really happens.
“That’s why I was so surprised to hear the news about the babies.”
Whoever the mum is, she must really have some problems in her life
Maria Forber, local
Detectives’ firmest lead appears to be CCTV footage of a woman leaving the scene of Elsa’s abandonment at around 8.45pm. Cops say it shows a black woman wearing a large dark coat, with a light-coloured scarf or hood around her neck and carrying a rucksack on her back heading down the Greenway.
She was then tracked walking up the tree-lined path for around a third of a mile before turning into Fabian Street, where the trail went cold.
This week I retraced her steps. Walking a few strides down Fabian Street, you are soon confronted by a small patch of grass, the North Beckton Children Play Park, dotted with benches and slides.
It was here, five years previously, that baby Roman was found swaddled in towels inside a Sainsbury’s bag on another freezing-cold evening, with snow falling.
Where siblings Harry, Roman and Elsa were discovered in Newham, London
Gran Rima Zvaliauskiene, 55, a former midwife originally from Lithuania, stumbled upon the child while walking her dog on January 31, 2019, at around 10pm.
“There was a crying noise from the bag,” she told The Sun. “She was crying so loud, at first I thought it was an animal.
“She was crying for her life — the baby saved herself. I removed the towels and when I saw the baby I realised it was newborn.”
Frantically calling cops, she dashed back to her home 100 yards away to fetch a blanket.
Her son Ovidijus Zvaliauska ran back to the park with her to help save Roman — a name given to her by medics after nearby Roman Road.
Shocked Ovidijus, 32, added: “Her forehead and ears looked like they were a bit frosty. She looked a bit purple. She was very cold.
PA:Press AssociationThe spot close to Balaam Street, Plaistow, where Baby Harry was found[/caption]
Vickie Flores – The SunGran Rima Zvaliauskiene, 55, a former midwife originally from Lithuania, stumbled upon Roman. Her son Ovidijus Zvaliauska ran back to the park with her to help[/caption]
LNPPolice at the spot where Baby Elsa was found, at the junction of Greenway and High Street South in Newham[/caption]
“I’m glad we were there or the baby might not have survived too much longer.
“We feel great that we helped save the baby’s life.”
Another local, Georgina Player, 31, said at the time: “The police came knocking at midnight to tell us what happened. They said she was only 30 minutes old when she was found — she even still had her umbilical cord.”
Just like Elsa, no attempt was made to conceal Roman. It seems that whoever abandoned them were keen for them to be found.
Another neighbour, a mother herself, said: “It is really upsetting. She didn’t have to leave the baby in the snow and cold, she could have left her on my doorstep and rang the bell.”
With the children’s park bathed in sun this week, former hospital supervisor Philip Pace, 80, was walking pet pug Honey past the bench where Roman was found.
The dad of one said: “It’s a sad story. The babies are innocent and don’t know what’s happened to them.”
Two years before Roman was found, she and Elsa’s big brother Harry was discovered “carefully wrapped in a white blanket” in nearby Plaistow Park.
The quickest route there by foot from North Beckton playground is to retrace your steps up Fabian Street back on to Greenway.
Then, turn left, and walk for just over a mile past Newham Hospital, which delivers around 5,500 babies a year, making it one of the busiest maternity units in the country.
Hitting Barking Road, it is then less than a quarter of a mile to Plaistow Park, where Harry was abandoned close to Balaam Road at 8.20am on Sunday, Sept-ember 17, 2017.
Had the siblings’ mother used the Greenway to place her babies in public parks just minutes after giving birth?
Incredibly rare
Exercising her French bulldogs Jilly and Minnie in the corner of the park where Harry was found, Maria Forber, 65, said: “Whoever the mum is, she must really have some problems in her life.
“It could be mental health, she could be in an abusive relationship, who knows? It’s really sad though, and she needs help.”
The housing officer, a grandmother of four, added: “I would urge her to get that help. Whatever her issues are, there’s people out there that can help her. I would love to meet her and try to help her myself.”
This whole case is extraordinary. I have never come across anything like it
Professor Lorraine Sherr
While the police enquiry has stalled, locals have a variety of theories over the siblings’ abandonment.
A father in his 30s suggested that the mother comes from a religious background and, conceiving the children out of wedlock, felt compelled to abandon them.
Another suggests she may have worried about seeking medical help because of her immigration status, or that drink or drugs may be involved.
Abandoned babies are an incredibly rare phenomenon.
Office for National Statistics figures say there were only 12 abandoned babies recorded in England and Wales between 2005 and 2014. But a 2009 University College London study suggested that official data had understated the problem and that 16 babies were abandoned each year in the UK. Professor Lorraine Sherr, who took part in the study, said of Elsa and her siblings: “This whole case is extraordinary. I have never come across anything like it.
“If I was to take a guess, I would say in this case there is likely to have been a mental health issue.”
The fact the three abandoned babies are siblings only became public knowledge this week following a court application by the BBC and the PA news agency.
At East London Family Court on Monday, Judge Carol Atkinson said reporting the link was of “great public interest” and could help identify the biological parents.
Judge Atkinson added that it was “of enormous interest and importance that people know there is a mother and father out there who felt the need to relinquish their children in this way, three times”.
Toyin Odumala wept when she heard Elsa’s story.
Now 22, Toyin was also abandoned when she was just hours old — left in a South East London stairwell while wrapped in a denim jacket.
“I was found by two dog walkers,” she said this week. “It felt very familiar. I didn’t want the baby to grow up with the emotional trauma I did.
“I’d blamed myself, wondering what I’d done wrong to be left alone, and who I really was.”
Adopted, her birth mother would later contact her saying she abandoned her because she did not have the correct papers to remain in Britain and had split with her father when she was pregnant.
Toyin decided not to have further contact with her mother.
She now campaigns for safe, temperature-controlled “baby boxes” where newborns can be left anonymously by mothers, without threat of prosecution.
So what has become of siblings Elsa, Roman and Harry?
Elsa, who is currently in foster care, is “doing well”, according to the family court.
Roman and Harry, who now have different names, have been adopted.
The three abandoned babies of Newham may never meet their biological parents.
Yet one day, it must be hoped they find strength and solace from one another.
Simon JonesAt the spot where Elsa was found, local electrician Mahmad Eshan told The Sun’s Oliver Harvey: ‘I’m still in shock’[/caption]
Dog walker Maria Forber, 65, said: ‘Whoever the mum is, she must really have some problems in her life’Simon Jones
Philip Pace, 80, was walking pet pug Honey past the bench where Roman was found, he said: ‘It’s a sad story’Simon Jones Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
