Girl, 15, who gave birth during babysitting shift 'thought baby boy was dead' when she wrapped him in plastic and dumped him in wheelie bin

She said she thought the baby boy was stillborn when she wrapped him in a bundle of clothes and a bin bag and put him in the bin to the rear of her home on August 9 2018.

The body of the infant was discovered by police officers who had been alerted by Blackpool Victoria Hospital staff who became suspicious after treating the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, for vaginal bleeding later that day.

At an inquest, coroner Andrew Cousins heard that, on the day of the incident, the teenage girl had been babysitting a young boy and the pair were left alone in the house at around 10.30am.

It is believed the girl gave birth to the baby at around 11.30am. She told police she thought he was dead when she put him in the wheelie bin.

Video footage of a police interview with the boy she was babysitting was played to the court. He said that at around 12.55pm he went upstairs and found his babysitter curled up on a bed surrounded by bloodstains.

She told him she had had a nosebleed.

The boy returned to the living room, and four minutes later the girl came downstairs and went into the kitchen.

It was around this time that the boy said he heard the sound of a baby crying.

He went into the kitchen and found his babysitter sitting on a chair with a bundle of clothes in front of her on the table.

He said: "I went in and I was going to get a milkshake, and when I was walking back I saw two little feet and legs, and (my babysitter) said it was a doll.

"I heard whining like a baby. Then I was thinking in my head 'tell me the truth'. She just told me an absolute lie, I think, because I know that could have been a baby. I think she might have put it in the bin."

The boy went back into the living room and used his tablet to Google search whether 15-year-olds could get pregnant, and was 'worried' when he learned they could. During this time he said he heard his babysitter opening the back door, and the sound of the back gate opening.

When he returned to the kitchen, the bundle of clothes - and 'legs and feet' - had vanished.

"There was blood everywhere and so I started cleaning it up," he said.

"There was blood on the wall and I tried to get it off but I couldn't get it off. There was blood on the floor and the kitchen."

Mr Cousins asked the now 18-year-old whether she covered the baby's face with the plastic bag when she wrapped him up before placing him in the wheelie bin, and she denied this.

Mr Cousins said: "If you placed (the baby) in the bin bag then would you not say that that bin bag must have been over his face?"

The teenager replied: "I don't know."

She said she heard no sound from Oliver and believed he was dead, though she did not check for a pulse.

"He wasn't making any noise. He wasn't moving at all," she said.

At around 2.10pm, the girl's mother returned to the house and noticed the bloodstains, and went upstairs to check on her.

The young boy said he overheard the girl telling her mother that she was bleeding because she had fallen over and broken something in the bathroom after suffering a dizzy spell.

She tried to convince her mother not to call an ambulance, but she did and they were taken to Blackpool Vic.

She told medics she was sexually active and so there may have been a possibility that she was pregnant, but she denied knowing she was expecting.

The girl's mother also suspected a pregnancy, but a test came back negative and so nurses began to suspect that there had been a concealed birth.

Police were alerted, and following conversations with the teenager they found 'a full term baby boy in the wheelie bin wrapped in clothing, further wrapped in a bin bag.'

DCI Gareth Willis, who led the investigation into the death, told the court that on the day of the incident, the infant's mum had made a number of Google searches, including 'why have I got really bad stomach pains', 'why did blood with goo in it come from my vagina', and 'how to cut an umbilical cord'.

The girl was interviewed under caution, and the DCI said: "I believed there was sufficient evidence to bring charges to (her), including homicide."

But following a review by the CPS, the case was dropped.

The inquest continues.