BRITAIN: An extensive police search was underway in the West Midlands last night after a two-day old identical twin girl was abducted from a cot next to her mother's hospital bed.
The search was focusing on two women, possibly acting together, who were seen acting suspiciously by staff inside Wordsley Hospital in Stourbridge at about 1.41 p.m. yesterday when the baby was reported missing.
The women, who were apparently able to by-pass security doors and voice-activated intercoms, had asked for directions to the maternity ward on the fourth floor of the hospital and a few minutes later were seen running out of the hospital.
The baby was snatched from her cot outside visiting hours as her 32-year-old mother slept next to her in the ward. The baby had not yet been named but it is likely that she was wearing an identity tag on her ankle.
"The parents are very, very distressed about this," Superintendent Steve Rowell, of West Midlands Police said. "They are caring at the moment for this missing child's identical twin. It would appear that two women, who appear to be acting together, went into the hospital and were asking where the maternity unit was. Later they were seen running out hurriedly and one of the women appeared to be concealing a baby under her coat. At this time the other woman was carrying a blue car seat."
Security in Britain's hospitals was upgraded 12 years ago after the abduction of Alex Griffiths, who was just 36 hours old when she was snatched from a London maternity ward, and overhauled again following two abductions with the last six years.
As police searched the hospital grounds and immediate area, the hospital's head of midwifery, Ms Yvonne O'Connor, defended the hospital's security system and insisted staffing levels were normal even though it was a Bank Holiday in Britain.