Troubled teenager who stole baby from ward avoids jail
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A teenager who kidnapped a two-day-old twin girl from a cot at the foot of her mother's hospital bed was spared jail yesterday and given a three-year rehabilitation order.
Kelly Oldnall, who had been in an abusive relationship with an older man, did not tell friends and family when she miscarried for the second time. Trapped by her lies, she walked into a maternity ward in May and took Elizabeth Rice from beside her twin, Susannah.
Oldnall went home, claiming the child as her own, pushing her up and down the street in a buggy. But her older sister Diana, who had helped to raise the teenager after her mother's death from breast cancer, became suspicious and told police.
Yesterday, Oldnall, sad and hesitant as she pleaded guilty to abduction at Wolverhampton Crown Court, was told she had narrowly avoided a lengthy jail sentence. She wept as Judge Robin Onions sentenced her to the community rehabilitation order. "I have read reports including psychiatric and pre- sentence papers and in passing this sentence I feel it has the most benefit to society," the judge said. "The offence you have committed, is an offence of the greatest seriousness. I hope you can appreciate what a traumatic experience this has been for the parents of this baby."
He added: "You had lied repeatedly to your family and you trapped yourself in the web of lies you had spun."
Antonie Muller, in mitigation, insisted Oldnall was aware of the seriousness of the crime. "When I meet her she is always very tearful and stressed because of the attention she receives when she comes to court. She is just a simple Black Country girl with problems that are not of her own making.
"She is only 18 and she has been moved from her family, which has caused her immense stress. I believe that in the interests of her and society it would be better if she can be rehabilitated where she will have time to reflect on her crime.
"The other option available is to send her to prison for a maximum of two years where she will count bricks and then be released back on to the streets of the West Midlands."
Judge Onions criticised the hospital for failing to ensure even the most "elementary precautions" were in place. Oldnall met little resistance when she walked into the maternity ward at Wordsley Hospital, Stourbridge, through a door that had been left propped open. As Deanne Rice slept, Oldnall walked out with the baby – born five weeks premature and weighing less than 5lb – under her jacket.
The judge said: "To prop open that door so the intercom is bypassed appears to serve no purpose. It seems to me that if these elementary precautions were in place this could have been prevented. As a parent myself I can only hazard what I would have felt if one of my children had been taken so soon after birth."
After the hearing, Elizabeth's parents, who were reunited with their daughter after seven hours, claimed increased hospital security measures did not go far enough to prevent a repeat abduction. Richard Rice, 30, and his 32-year-old wife, of Old Sinford, Stourbridge, said in a statement through their lawyer: "There was a fundamental breakdown of the [Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS] Trust's security arrangements on the day of Elizabeth's abduction. A member of the public was challenged by staff in the maternity unit but she was not removed, which allowed her the opportunity to abduct Elizabeth. It also beggars belief that the CCTV cameras had no film to record the events. Clearly, there are salutary lessons to be learnt from the whole episode."
Elizabeth, they added, was now a healthy, contented baby who appeared to have suffered no adverse reaction. Their other daughter is also thriving.
Paul Farrenden, the trust chief executive, defended the hospital, insisting new security controls, including giving babies electronic tags, had been introduced. "We have learnt from the experience," he added.
Oldnall, of Pensnett, Dudley, was told she would have to serve the first 12 months at a bail hostel outside the West Midlands, where she would have to observe a curfew and a ban on alcohol. If she responds well, she will be moved to an address nearer home for the remainder of her sentence.