Plumber tells of finding baby flushed into sewer

Police are expected to reveal information today about the mother of the baby found in a Hastings sewer.

An investigation involving 15 police officers began on Monday after a plumber unblocking drains found the baby boy, which it has now been revealed was stillborn.

The discovery comes almost three weeks after a dead baby, which police named Moses, was found dumped in a garden. His mother has not been found.

In this week's case, the baby had been flushed down a toilet from one of the 12 houses nearby.

Post-mortem results reveal that he was from a Polynesian family and was stillborn at 25 or 26 weeks.

Detective Senior Sergeant Sam Aberahama of Hastings police said the baby had been named Aaron, after the brother of Moses in the Bible.

He had been born up to six days ago, but he had been in the water for only between four and six hours before being found on Monday at 1.30pm.

Mr Aberahama said the baby was discovered with the umbilical cord. There was no placenta.

He believed it was likely someone helped the woman give birth and he urged anyone with information to come forward for the sake of the mother's physical and mental welfare.

Many of the 12 houses where the baby could have come from had visitors staying and the infant might belong to someone from out of town.

Cobham Place in the working-class suburb of Raureka, where baby Aaron was found, has large leafy trees, state houses, some front fences with graffiti on them and the odd immobile car.

Neighbours were at a loss as to whom the baby could belong.

Children walking and biking around in the cul-de-sac were among some who saw the tiny limbs of the baby, which were inside a bucket, after plumber Ashley Wood pulled him from the drain in the afternoon. Mr Wood said that at first he could not believe what it was.

"My first thoughts were, 'Oh no. It can't be another baby'," he said.

"Then I thought it must be a doll. I tried to get it out of the drain with rods and it slipped off and made me think again that it was a baby."

Mr Wood had been called to fix a drain of a house in the street that had been blocked since the weekend.

It was when he checked a council sewer after being unable to unblock the residential drain that he found the baby.

He had cleared debris from the top of the 1.6m-deep sewer drain so that the water, which was about 150mm deep, could drain away. That was when he made the discovery.

He put the baby in a bucket and took it to the police station.

Mr Wood said he felt numb after finding the baby.

"Everybody seems to think I should get upset, but it has not had that effect.

"I have thought about what sort of situation a woman would be in to flush a baby down a toilet. She must be in absolute distress."

The clinical director of paediatrics for the Hawke's Bay District Health Board, Dr Philip Moore, said what had occurred had to be psychologically damaging in the short and long term for the mother.

The case seemed like one involving a concealed pregnancy, which was more common than most people thought.

There was a chance that the baby might have survived if the mother had had medical attention.

An alert had been sent out to those in the medical field, who might have pregnant patients, but no one had come forward.

Police say anyone who abandoned a baby could be charged with disposing of a new-born child. They urged anyone with information to call the Hastings police crime Line on 0800 567-789.