Appeal for mother of newborn boy found dead in bag outside church

Police have appealed for the mother of a newborn baby boy found dead in a Marks and Spencer shopping bag outside a west London church to come forward.

Officers were called at 12:46 GMT on Tuesday to Powis Gardens after a council refuse worker spotted the bag outside outside the church.

London Ambulance Service attended and the newborn boy was declared dead at the scene.

At a press conference outside the All Saints Church in Notting Hill on Wednesday morning, Spt Owen Renowden from the Met Police said: “My priority remains with the mother’s welfare and health. We are really worried about her wellbeing as she will have recently given birth.”

Supt Renowden added: “I know she will likely be feeling very frightened and going through an extremely difficult time.

“If you are the baby’s mother and you see this today, I want to appeal directly to you to come forward and receive help.”

The deputy warden at the church told BBC London she had “never heard anything like this in my life” after the discovery of the baby boy.

“I came here to prepare for the food bank and I just saw loads of police arriving, and when I came out it was all taped over,” Marcia Haynes said.

Ms Haynes said when she found out that a baby had died “it just freaked me out, and I just had to abandon what I was doing and go home because I thought I was going to be ill, to be honest”.

She said she had let two female police officers in to search the church on Tuesday.