Baby

The body of a new-born child was washed up in the River Severn.

The body was discovered by the foreman of the pumping station at New Passage while he was walking along the sea bank with his terrier dog around 8.30am on the Sunday about 100 yards from the pumping station.

The police arrived at 9.30am and placed it in a box so that it was not washed out with the tide. It appeared to have been dead for several weeks and was quite nude.

The doctor who examined the body said that it was a female child and highly decomposed with its right hand and face badly torn. He said that its lungs were fully aerated showing that it had had a separate existence and that it had probably been born a week before it died. He also said that it could not have been in the water for less than a month and might have been in there longer.

The doctor said that it was not possible to tell the cause of death or whether the child was dead when immersed in the water but in his opinion death was not due to drowning.

A verdict of found dead was returned.