15-Year-Old Girl Secretly Gave Birth While Babysitting And Dumped Newborn In Bin, Court Heard

A 15-year-old girl secretly gave birth during her babysitting shift, wrapped the newborn in clothes and dumped him in a wheelie bin, a U.K. court has heard.

The infant's body was discovered hours later in the bin behind her home in Wesham on Aug. 9, 2018, reported Blackpool Gazette.

During the inquest held Wednesday, coroner Andrew Cousins said post mortem examination had revealed that baby Oliver Rae was alive for at least two hours after his mother Zoe Rae, now 18, dumped him in the bin.

"(The baby) was born in poor condition and his health was deteriorating. He was placed in a bin bag and into a wheelie bin. He was alive when placed into the bin bag, but was exhibiting minimal signs of life," Cousins said.

According to the coroner, Zoe gave birth around 11:30 a.m. (ET 7:30 am) while she was babysitting a boy. Around an hour later she searched ''how to cut an umbilical cord" on Google. She then placed the newborn underneath a sink and cleaned the blood with towels.

Thirty minutes later, the young boy she was looking after went upstairs and found her bleeding and curled up on a bed. She, however, told the boy that she had a nosebleed and the boy went downstairs. Zoe followed four minutes later with the baby wrapped in some clothes. She kept the baby on the kitchen table.

The boy, hearing the newborn wailing, came into the kitchen. He saw the bundle of clothes on the table with "feet and legs" sticking out but Zoe told him it was a doll. He then searched on the internet whether a 15-year-old could get pregnant. According to the boy, he heard the back door open soon and the baby was gone.

However, Zoe's mother, who came back, saw her daughter bleeding and called 999 despite her begging not to. The girl was taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, where nurses suspected a concealed birth and alerted the police, who eventually found the infant in the bin.

Three different doctors told the court that they could not ascertain whether the baby was suffocated due to lack of evidence.

But Cousins ruled that it was highly likely that the infant was still alive when dumped. He said the young boy, a witness in the case, was "intelligent" and "mature for his age" and understood the importance of telling the truth. The court also saw video footage of the young boy during a police interview.

"In contrast, I have difficulty accepting the evidence from Zoe in this case," Cousins said, noting that Zoe's answers were "evasive" and he "could not place a great deal of worth on the answers given by (her)."

Although Zoe denied ever knowing she had been pregnant, her internet history revealed she had searched "how to end a pregnancy in the first week" and "how to abort at home."