Samantha Baldwin genuinely believed her sons Louis and Dylan had been abused, a judge said

A mother who went into hiding with her two sons had falsely accused their father of sexually abusing them and drugged the boys herself to try to implicate him, a judge revealed yesterday.

Samantha Baldwin, who sparked a nationwide hunt before her arrest last week, made her sons swallow sedatives to support her accusations against David Madge, the court was told.

Judge Jeremy Lea disclosed the details of the case as he accused Ms Baldwin of taking the children away in breach of a court order after a hearing last month in which he had ruled that her allegations were false.

Sitting at Nottingham family court, he revealed that Ms Baldwin, 40, from Newark, disappeared with Louis, nine, and Dylan, six, on the day of