A baby boy was found dead on a moving conveyer belt at a waste recycling plant in West Yorkshire. Authorities believe that the baby was born four weeks premature but alive when his mother gave birth. However, the doctors who examined the infants’ body said they thought the baby died shortly after birth.
The recycle plant worker who found the baby, Gary Normington, described how he reacted when he saw the body.
Normington said, “I took a
second look and then saw what I thought was a head. I shouted to stop and a colleague pulled the cord to stop the conveyor belt. I said something like ‘It’s a baby.’ I heard someone say ‘Is it.’ I then started to feel sick. I went to sit on the stair well. I then saw the site managers. I said ‘are you sure?’ I said ‘yes.’ I knew it was obviously human when I saw its head and eyes. That image will stay with me for a long time.”
According to the Daily Mail, after the baby was discovered police began to investigate the tragedy and sent flyers to more than 35,000 local households that had waste collected that day in an attempt to find the mother. Additionally, they interviewed fifteen women as potential suspects but all were found to have given birth to healthy babies or were never pregnant at all. Tragically, a second baby was found at the same plant almost two years prior; but the first infant had no DNA connection to the boy.
Jim Harrison, the Deputy Superintendent of West Yorkshire Police said, “As we suspected the child was prematurely born or close to full time, we deemed it was likely that we would potentially, from inquiries, be able to find females that the local authority had concern for or were in the midwifery department – females pregnant but disengaged or had given birth and had not further contact with.”
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He continued, “Once we had established where all the refuse was collected, from analysts we were able to establish every single property that had rubbish collected that day. Fifteen females come into the enquiry and we were able to eliminate every single one as having a non -pregnancy or having given birth to a healthy child.”
The Corner assigned to the investigation, Oliver Longstaff, also commented on the case. He said, “The basis of the evidence shows that the death appeared to have occurred at least a few days before the baby was found. Where the baby died we do not know. One of the things I have to determine if I can is whether the baby was a still birth or live. On the balance of probability it is my cautious view that it is slightly more likely that this baby was born alive than dead. The cause of death remains undetermined because of the state the body was in when it was found.”
