To be glad they are upping efforts to find this mother

[AtlasPine]

£20,000 offered in search for parents of three abandoned babies https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg00m1mv3eo

It seems quite likely to me that she is in a position of vulnerability and in need of a lot of help. For three pregnancies with no ensuing baby to go unnoticed by everyone around her suggests she may be held against her will. Also, they need to be able to get the third baby into an adoption situation asap to give her as much security as possible. Really hope someone comes forward - perhaps the reward will help.

They have had a DNA test, and are full siblings. As in, same mother and father.

They are. When the 3rd baby was found the authorities said they’d make sure they would be in contact as they grew up.

When the 3rd baby was found the police reported that they’d make sure parents were both of African background

I hope the police making search details public doesn't jeopardise her but I suspect they have the area under surveillance so might help to flush her out or whoever is holding her to make a move.

On how they’ve identified 400 houses, it’s probably because there is other functioning CCTV in the area. I know places that are constrained because of park railings or train lines meaning that the in and out points are clear.

Identifying for example that both parents are Somali, or both Yoruba, would narrow down the number of possible households. Even in London there are only a few '00,000 Somalis, possoble 10k Yoruba, and the majority won't be living in that specific area.

I don't think the general public need to know about this search, police should work to find the parents and then see what is going on before publicising things that may create more chaos. What if a range of families in that area suddenly start moving due to fear of police action? Or the mother is put at risk and moved? Or other women start being suspected who are not the mother? There is a real risk of unintended consequences. Appreciate they want to "save" a possible future baby, but this doesn't seem like a sensible approach.

I fully agree with you that the public do not need to know about this search. A softly softly approach is needed so the “perpetrator” is not scared off, be it the mother or someone controlling her.

We have a case in Ireland where a newborn baby was found on a beach in Kerry stabbed 28 times in 1984. It took almost 40 years but they found the parents, in their late 50s and early 60s, still living locally, via DNA from a sample given voluntarily by their son.
The case is still being investigated.
The father of the mother of the baby was an Irish police officer apparently, we now know but didn’t know when there was a big investigation many years back into the whole case and the wrongful arrest of an innocent woman and her family.
Google The Kerry Baby case for more information on it. Utterly heartbreaking. 🥲
As is this case.

I'm glad they said today that the woman may be being 'restrained from coming forward' rather than just not wanting to,and that they said the mother was a 'victim'.

How very sad. I hope they find the mother and are able to reunite her with her babies.

I really think they need to do a lot of investigation into the circumstances before they reunite them IF the mother is ever found.

Oh yes. With the child torso in the Thames case ("Adam") they were able to narrow it down to South-West Nigeria.

Not sure why they're so sure she's living in this one small bit of London though. I reckon if I were trying to abandon a child (or anything else) and not be traced, I'd walk at least a mile or two from home.

If it was incest they'd be able to tell from the DNA testing (although whether they'd release that information at this stage is of course another question).

I think either SEN issues or maybe some sort of culturally-influenced thing, like she's in a community where having children while unmarried is not accepted, and she's in an illicit relationship. I mean, it's not usually people in stable long-term relationships who end up abandoning the babies. So if they all have the same father, there's something about the relationship that's being hidden. And if she doesn't live with him (like maybe because he's married) or even see him on a very regular basis, it's just about possible he doesn't even know about the babies / had no involvement in dumping them.

@ElsvietaThey are sure of the location because of the lack of CCTV. Where the babies were left has no CCTV coverage. They checked CCTV covering the wider area and didn’t find any sight of them, so conclude they are coming from within the small area not covered. However I believe more CCTV has now been added in that area recently.

But if someone was planning to do something like this, might they not carry the baby in something like a big shopping bag, rather than a pram or sling or anything else that reads as "person with baby" on CCTV?

I’m not a detective. I’m just relaying the information I have heard through various news coverage. But the police don’t just randomly decide someone is in an area without good reason. I’m sure there is plenty of information known about this case that hasn’t been made public because the public don’t need to know.