Bishop Auckland baby garroted and hidden beneath floor – coroner

Oliver said it was unusual in the 21st Century to find it so difficult to answer all the coroner’s key questions, namely who the deceased was, when and where they died and how they came by their death.

“This a very sad and singular case,” he said, adding the police had “left no stone unturned”.

The coroner said the “critical piece of evidence” was the twine and it “seemed unlikely” it would have been tied to a baby who was either stillborn or died of natural cases.

He said the “most likely explanation” was a “person in a position to care for him while he was most vulnerable… took the decision to end his life by means of strangulation using twine as a garrote”.

“This was a homicide,” the coroner said, with the baby never officially recorded as existing and “disposed of by means of concealment”.

He also said it most likely happened in or around 1910.

“Clearly this was a terrible thing that happened to a defenceless infant,” Oliver said, but he added it was “heart-warming” to see how people had “stepped up to do the right thing” after he was found.

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