Authors: Paul Britton
By taking Roger through it in great detail, he recalled how the woman seemed to hover in the doorway, partially inside the room, holding the door open with her right hand. He described her hair … it didn’t seem natural, he couldn’t see her forehead, she might have worn glasses…
Confident and relaxed, she smiled at him with full, alert and positive eyes.
‘I want you to look at her hands,’ I asked. ‘Can you see any jewellery? Is she wearing a watch? Does she have a name badge? What about a belt buckle?’
Roger shook his head.
‘OK, now look at her face. What do you see? Is she above you, below you, or at the same height as you? How much of her face do you see? Is a part of the door in the way? Tell me more about her hair.’
Slowly a new picture began to emerge, strengthening some details from Roger’s initial statement but casting doubt on others. It wasn’t an easy interview and he shed tears as he described the moment Abbie was taken.
Karen came back into the room and went straight to the toilet. The nurse seemed to follow her, entering while the door was still open. She must have expected Karen to be in the room. Roger half assumed she’d spoken to Karen because they seemed to come in together. He and Charlie were playing with the Porsche 911.
‘Is it all right if I do this hearing test?’ she said. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes. I’m just down the corridor.’ This time her tone was firm and instructional rather than apologetic. Somewhere outside, she’d taken a deep breath and steeled herself, saying ‘This is it.’
She scooped up Abbie as she spoke and then calmly left the room. Karen emerged from the bathroom about ten seconds later, but by then the nurse had left the ward. It took several more minutes to establish that she wasn’t a member of staff and by then she was outside the hospital.
The interview had taken nearly three hours and Roger’s answers had grown more confident as he began to detach the emotion from the memory. Three important benefits had emerged. The physical description of the offender had been enhanced, the chronology of events was more accurate and I knew far more about the woman’s demeanour - the slightly tentative quality when she first came to the room and then how she pumped herself up before trying again.
Karen came into the living room and sat leaning against Roger. She was totally raw. Here was a person who had gone from being confident, ebullient and joyous, for whom all life had come together in that wonderful moment when a baby is born, and then in a few seconds it was all taken away from her. The trauma had closed her down. Her ability to plan, make decisions and conduct herself had gone and I could see a woman who wanted two things - to have her baby back and to curl up in a regressed ball and melt into a puddle of human sludge.
Roger was different; he kept thinking about the ‘if onlys’ - if only he’d asked for identification; if only he’d said no,
etc.
Now he felt that he had to try to do something; even if it meant getting in a car and driving round the streets looking for Abbie. It might not make any sense but at least it was something.
I explained to both of them that they weren’t cut off from the outside world and still had a vital role to play in the investigation. The chances of Abbie being physically hurt were reasonably low and usually such cases have ended with the child being found safe and well.
Seeing Karen’s pain, I set in chain the possibility that should there ever come a time when this was all over, that they needed or wanted to talk to someone about what had happened, they only had to call me.
While I’d been interviewing Roger Humphries, a major news conference was underway at West Bridgford police station. Harry Shepherd revealed the communications strategy to waiting journalists. In an off-the-record briefing, he said the next forty-eight hours were vital and that the media had an important role to play in recovering Abbie Humphries.
Journalists are often dubious about such rhetoric. Some assume they are being denied information or access due to a conspiracy. In this case they wanted the photographs from the security cameras; and also ‘talent’ to interview each day. They respected Harry and trusted him when he promised them greater access and certain concessions once the forty-eight hours had elapsed. One of these was that I be made available for interviews. Unfortunately, this was agreed without asking me. I would have preferred to have been left out of any publicity.
The gathered journalists accepted the terms and as the cameras rolled, Harry Shepherd delivered the carefully phrased appeal. With so little time to rehearse, I made sure he used words he was comfortable with so that it sounded as genuine as possible.
‘Abbie is being missed by her family and I know that all of the people sympathize and support her through this time. I’m sure that everyone would join me in saying that whoever took Abbie from the hospital has our sympathies also. It must have been difficult to take such a lonely step. I want to appeal directly to you, the woman who is now holding Abbie. You have needs of your own and problems that have led you to take her. I realize that you love Abbie, but she is Karen’s child, not yours.
‘Karen is suffering such anguish, that of all people you will understand, not knowing if her baby is safe and being unable to hold her. Please, please telephone and let Karen know if Abbie is well. You more than most other people will know how important your telephone call will be.’
He added, ‘We do understand and are ready to give you all the help, understanding and support appropriate to your needs. Our only consideration at this time is to restore all the important people closely associated with these difficult events back to some degree of happiness.’
‘One of the most important people I have in mind is the woman who was driven to take Abbie from her mother.’
Back at West Bridgford, I sat upstairs and drew up a psychological profile of the abductor. The interview with Roger Humphries had confirmed the accuracy of the media strategy launched earlier that morning. Equally, the enhanced physical description of the woman had reaffirmed the earlier decision not to release the video stills or artists’ impressions. They would definitely have misled potential witnesses and informants.
After reviewing the information, I drew up a sixteen-point psychological profile.
I wrote, ‘The woman is aged from twenty to her early thirties. She is comfortable in a hospital setting and familiar with the QMC This was clear from how she managed to conduct herself over a long period of time without attracting attention or being deterred. She didn’t appear lost, nervous or frightened.
‘She has good intelligence, with an education at least to secondary level.’ I knew this because of the planning. She needed intelligence to conceive the plan, acquire the dress and wig, and to deal with unexpected events. As soon as she opened the door she couldn’t know what Roger was going to say. She had to be able to look at him, smile, read his verbal and non-verbal behaviour - all of this required a quick mind.
‘She is likely to be married or in a similar relationship, but not a stable one because of her desire to secure it (the relationship) by taking a baby.’
‘She is confident and easy in deceit.’ Not as obvious as it sounds because there are so many physical signs of a person being nervous, they blush, stammer, perspire, or fidget, this woman gave none of these clues.
‘She is a careful planner but not exhaustively so,’ good at the outline, perhaps, but not the meticulous detail. I could see her limitations. When she walked out of the hospital, she seemed unsure of what to do next. She hesitated and appeared hurried, looking downwards and drawing attention to herself. Why? Because she hadn’t planned this far ahead. Real scholars have the ability to think things through the whole way, relentlessly looking at every possible scenario. Most people, however, get frustrated or impatient and plan as much as they have to and then improvise. This woman hadn’t thought about how she was going to get the baby home. She hadn’t brought any clothes or blankets for Abbie. The hospital had become a labyrinth and she had to get out. Suddenly onlookers began to notice her and see her anxiety. Here was the evidence that she was prone to panic under pressure.
‘She is a risk-taker.’ Through each step of the abduction the chance of discovery increased but she carried on - changing her clothes, walking the corridor, penetrating the heart of the hospital. At any time a member of staff could have asked, ‘Excuse me, can I help you?’
Once inside the bedroom, Roger could have sensed something was wrong when she picked up Abbie; or a proper nurse could have walked into the room, exposing her lie and cutting off her escape route. The abductor might have considered all of these things but she certainly recognized the risk.
She had acted alone and would have prepared a home for the baby, with a credible rationale such as faking a pregnancy to cover Abbie’s arrival. This had to be convincing because she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself.
Clinically, I’d examined a number of women who were capable of abducting a child; some who had trouble with relationships, others who were delusional. I was also familiar with the somewhat limited clinical literature on infant abductions. Since 1971, 171 children had been abducted in Britain and all bar one had been recovered safe and well. It was a reassuring, although very thin, numerical database.
I delivered the psychological profile to Harry Shepherd. We were both tired, but there was still work to do.
‘You have three major possibilities for her motivation and five others which are less likely,’ I said. ‘Of the major three, you are firstly looking at the possibility that the abductor could be a woman who is grossly psychologically disturbed. This will include some sort of delusional system where she sees Abbie as her baby, being reclaimed, and no-one else’s.
‘Secondly, you may be dealing with a woman who is trying to protect or sustain a failing relationship and she thinks that a baby will influence things. Either she wants to make someone think they’re the father of her child; or she wants to hold together a marriage or relationship. This could include women who are told they cannot have children.
‘Thirdly, you may be dealing with a person who is psychologically isolated and unable to build up relationships with adults but who feels confident with children. She wants to be loved and needs a baby who will love her unconditionally.’
I stressed again that these were the most likely motivations, but also listed the others: it could be a personal matter. The woman may be obsessed with Roger and has taken the child because it should have been hers and not Karen’s. Or it could be personal against Karen and police should look at women she has come in contact with as a midwife. It may be aimed at the QMC rather than the parents. A disgruntled member of staff or a patient who feels they lost their child as a result of some perceived mistake might want to punish the hospital. Abbie might have been stolen to order in a commercial transaction; or abducted for some ritual or religious purpose.
Based on what Shepherd had told me, I excluded these last five possibilities. Karen and Roger were originally meant to be in a different ward and had been moved at very short notice to the side-room. The abductor couldn’t have known this, which meant she wasn’t aiming to punish the Humphries specifically, she simply wanted a baby ….. any baby.
Nor did I believe it was an attack on the QMC. There are far easier ways to punish a hospital and these don’t involve hurting innocent parents. Mercifully, the likelihood of Abbie being stolen to order or for ritual purposes was so remote that it could be down-graded although not dismissed entirely.
One rationale stood out from the others - I was sure that Abbie had been taken to weld a marriage or relationship together. If I was right about the motivation, then the entire strategy to recover Abbie had to flow from it.
One of Shepherd’s first questions to me had been, ‘Is she going to harm the baby?’
I told him, ‘Not ordinarily, but the risk will increase significantly if she panics or feels fearful of being punished if she is caught. If she thinks she might be trapped in a difficult situation, she might run off and abandon Abbie who isn’t going to survive more than a few hours on her own.’
Shepherd said, ‘Which is why I want to make sure we don’t do or say anything that is going to lead to a child being hurt.’
For the next two days, Harry Shepherd was to be the caring, avuncular face of British policing … at least that was the plan. Yet within hours of the press conference, the strategy was threatened from an unlikely quarter.
Central TV, the regional station, has a monthly programme called Crimestalker, fronted by the former deputy chief constable of Manchester, John Stalker. Like Crimewatch UK it is a mixture of offence reconstructions, stolen property reports and a showcase for various photofits and video footage. Both shows appeal directly to the public to help in solving crimes, and I had appeared on each of them at various times.
From my experience, John Stalker was a man of considerable intelligence, crime-fighting expertise and personal integrity, although I regarded Crimestalker as having the more sensationalist style.
One of the regular segments was called ‘Brief from the Chief and had the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Dan Crompton giving a rather chatty update on particular investigations or on developments in policing.
Harry Shepherd found me downstairs at West Bridgford on Tuesday evening and took me to one side.
‘You’re not going to believe this. I don’t know how to tell you.’
Oh, my God, I thought, they’ve found Abbie dead.
Shepherd said, ‘The Chief Constable is going to make his own appeal on Crimestalker tomorrow night. He’s also going to release the photofits and hospital video footage.’
‘Has the strategy changed?’ I asked incredulously.
‘No, it’s nothing to do with me. It’s out of my hands.’
I could see Shepherd was bitterly unhappy; he wasn’t a man who could conceal his distress or frustration. I suspected that some people thought he was a bit of a pushover but they were wrong. Rather, he was one of those people who expected that folks were going to be decent and do the right thing, despite years of experience as a policeman that told him this didn’t always happen.