Mother's cry of anguish for abducted baby

"My baby, my baby, help."

Those words shattered the peace and quiet of a typical Saturday morning in St Albans Grove, a tree-lined cul-de-sac in Lower Hutt.

Stephen Ranson was outside his house cleaning his motorbike when he heard the cries from a distraught woman.

Thinking it was an accident or domestic row, he raced 150m down the street to see if he could help.

He found prominent Maori lawyer Donna Hall sobbing, "beside herself", in the arms of another woman and calling for her husband.

"I said, 'Can I help?', and she was still sobbing and saying, 'My baby's been taken, he's got a gun and he's driven off.'

"It all sounded almost too dramatic at first until you realised it was reality," Mr Ranson said.

A few minutes earlier, Donna Hall had been walking her 8-month-old adopted daughter, Kahurautete Durie, in a pushchair down St Albans Grove.

Kahu's father, Waitangi Tribunal chairman and High Court judge Eddie Durie, was not along for the walk but her mother was accompanied by two teenage nieces and their dog.

Just before a set of concrete steps at the end of the street, in suburban Woburn, a man police say was aged in his late-30s or early-40s was waiting.

About 11.50am, as the group reached the end of the street, which is overlooked by a bent and weathered Neighbourhood Watch sign, the man got out of the car.

The nearby area is always busy on Saturday mornings with traffic because the Strand Park sportsgrounds are just over the other side of a small embankment the steps climb.

The man confronted Donna Hall and her companions armed with a gun - which police say may have been a double-barrelled shotgun.

He took the pushchair back to the car, a late model two-tone silver and blue Mitsubishi sedan - possibly a Galant - and bundled the helpless baby Kahu, who cannot yet crawl, inside.

He drove down St Albans Grove and turned left into Woburn Rd.

The man is described as a Caucasian, about 1.78m (5ft 10in) tall and wearing black jeans and a black jacket. He was either balding or had close cropped greying hair.

Donna Hall was distraught.

Mr Ranson said she was not screaming incoherently but was extremely upset and calling for her husband.

"When the first police car arrived she said, 'My husband, my husband, get my husband."'

The police arrived "jolly quickly" with several squad cars, sealed off the road and Mr Ranson went back to his home.

Kahu was wearing a navy blue, one-piece "stretch and grow" jumpsuit, covered by a pink jacket with dog-shaped buttons and rabbit ears on the hood.

Police said no demands had been made by the kidnapper and he had not made contact with either police or the family.

As a police taskforce continued its investigation yesterday, reports on the kidnapping were made to both Prime Minister Helen Clark and Attorney-General Margaret Wilson.

Helen Clark told the Herald: "To the best of my knowledge they haven't been able to establish any motive. The car number - well it's great to have it - but it's stolen." The Prime Minister said she was distressed for the baby's parents.

Margaret Wilson said she had spoken to Chief Justice Sian Elias and would ask Courts Department officials to review security for judges. She was unaware of any threats against Justice Durie.

The kidnapping was not the only terrible event to unfold in Lower Hutt on Saturday.

That morning, 36-year-old Kate Alkema, married and with two stepchildren in their 20s, went for a two-hour walk she would never return home from.

She left her Oxford Terrace, Lower Hutt, home at 8.50am and was due back at 11am.

But at lunchtime - just a short time after Donna Hall's baby was snatched - Ms Alkema's family raised their own alarm with police as they became more worried.

Her body was found about 4pm beside the Hutt River, about 2km from the abduction scene. She had been strangled or garrotted.

Head of the homicide investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Oxnam, said police were not ruling out the possibility the two cases were linked.

About 100 police are working on both cases.

The office in charge of the abduction case, Detective Inspector Stuart Wildon, said police were still trying to clarify the exact sequence of what appeared to be a planned kidnapping.

"This offender has taken some time to plan what he has done. He was armed with a firearm."

Police trainees went door to door yesterday looking for witnesses to the abduction.

Spokeswoman Kaye Calder said the police were trying to produce a composite drawing of the abductor, as well as following up any other information the family or anyone else might have.

Police were keen to receive any information, no matter how trivial it might seem, and any reports of the getaway vehicle.

Unlike some other kidnappings, there was nothing to suggest it was domestically related, and the absence of any ransom demands more than 36 hours after the abduction made it all the more mysterious, she said.

Donna Hall pleaded for Kahu to be returned.

"Baby K is an innocent little girl," she said. "She can't speak, walk or even crawl. She needs regular feeding and to be kept warm.

"Please, just wrap her up warmly and deliver her to somewhere where there are people and she will be quickly found."

Mr Wildon said police were appealing to the man to leave the baby in a safe place where people were present who would find her.

"She needs to be returned to her parents," he said.

Mr Wildon said the police's priorities were to find the baby and locate the getaway car. Police were also compiling a list of suspects.

A free information line has been set up. It is 0800 150-499.

Mr Ranson said he was shaken by the abduction, which happened in broad daylight.

"I've got a 10-year-old and we only live about a mile away from this other thing [the killing of Ms Alkema].

"This is a pretty, leafy, secluded part of Lower Hutt. We thought this was a very peaceful and trouble-free neighbourhood but people getting abducted and murdered, well.

"It's a sign of the times and not a very nice one," he said.

"I don't feel nervous because I think this is not a random thing. By the sounds of it someone has planned it for a reason.

"But my wife's certainly not going to go on her morning walk down the end of the road."

Yesterday the street was peaceful, with only a few cars parked at the end of the cul-de-sac.

A neighbour was watering his garden. He said the pleasant street was "not nice now".

Full coverage: Baby Kahurautete kidnapping

Picture: Kahurautete Durie

Picture: Kahurautete's clothing

Picture: the car being sought by police

Map

Police hotline: 0800 150 499
(Ring this number if you have information that could assist police)