Baby found in Aldershot was no more than six hours old when she died from blows to the head

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Detectives are trying to trace the mother of a baby girl who was beaten to death in a park hours after she was born.

The body of the girl, who has been named only as Baby M by officers, was discovered at the edge of Manor Park in Aldershot, Hampshire, by a local council worker on 19 May last year.

A postmortem found that the child, who was no more than six hours old when she died, suffered multiple blunt force injuries to the head with other minor injuries to her body.

In a video appeal filmed beside the park DCI Dave Storey, of Hampshire police, said identifying the girl’s parents was key to understanding the murder.

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“We are in possession of a full DNA profile of the baby’s mother, which we can use to prove or eliminate any women believed to be involved in the investigation,” he said.

A spokeswoman added: “We wouldn’t say that the mother is a suspect, but she is obviously an important person we need to talk to. Whether or not she committed the murder is what we have to ascertain.”

Police believe the baby was born and killed in the park.

Soil and insect experts from the National History Museum estimated that birth happened between 6pm on 15 May and 8am the following day.

CCTV captured images of two people walking past the birth site 10 times between 11.30pm on 15 May and 12.30am on 16 May.

Storey added that a DNA profile taken from the baby showed that both she and her mother, and probably her father, were of east Asian ethnicity. One of the figures in the CCTV footage appeared wearing east Asian clothes.

Storey said: “This remains a particularly sad case which despite extensive investigation we are still are nowhere nearer to identifying the newborn baby, Baby M, nor her mother.

“We have a baby who is unnamed and at this stage is still not buried and we would like some assistance in order to identify the mother and obtain some justice for Baby M.”

He explained that despite interviews with local health workers, police have been unable to find the mother.

Storey said: “We still would like to identify the mother and provide some support because it takes an awful lot for a mother to give birth to a child to then either kill the baby or have the baby taken away from her and killed immediately afterwards.”

Asking for the public’s help, Storey said: “We have a couple walking past the birth scene between 11.30pm and 12.30am and they don’t just walk past once, they walk past 10 times and we strongly believe they may be connected with the birth and subsequent murder and we are appealing for witnesses or information to identify those two persons.

“We are also launching some significant house-to-house inquiries in and around Manor Park to try to identify witnesses or people who have knowledge of the murder.”