Baby

The body of a newly-born male child was found on a ledge outside a house in Colville Square in Kensington.

The police arrived at the scene shortly after receiving a call by a radio car and found the body there wrapped up in a woman's petticoat. There was no clothing on the child and nothing that enabled it to be identified.

The pathologist that carried out the post mortem said that the child had been born within 24 hours of its discovery and had weighed 6lb 5oz.. He said that the front of the child's neck had small abrasions consistent with fingernail marks as well as small haemorrhages of the larynx and that there was no evidence of disease. He gave the child's cause of death as being due to asphyxia, due probably to pressure upon the neck. However, he added that he thought that it was possible that the pressure could have been applied during the child's delivery. He added that there was no evidence of there having been skilled attention at birth.

The pathologist added that it was possible that the marks on the child's neck could have been caused by deliberate strangulation, but said that they did not suggest it by their character. He said, 'The baby could have been strangled but in my opinion he probably died from want of proper attention at birth'.

The detective in charge of the investigation into the child's death said that an extensive investigation had been carried out in order to find the child's mother but that they had been unsuccessful.

The Coroner returned an open verdict, stating that extensive enquiries by the police had failed to trace the child's mother and that the boy had died from asphyxia with the exact circumstances not known.