Dumped on a doorstep, the baby victim of carjacking on way to wedding
A BABY was dumped on a stranger’s doorstep by a teenage carjacker after he sped off with the boy and his 12-year-old stepsister inside.
The girl, who was dressed as a bridesmaid for her uncle’s wedding, flung herself from the moving car.
But the callous carjacker carried on driving before dumping her brother – who celebrated his first birthday yesterday – an hour later on the doorstep.
The family were on their way to the wedding when the teenage carjacker struck while the boy’s mother was inside a shop in Enfield, North London, buying snacks.
The girl managed to clamber into the front passenger seat of the three- door Vauxhall Astra, open the door and fling herself on to the pavement a short distance away. She was left on the pavement screaming ‘the baby, the baby’, but escaped with minor injuries.
Her stepbrother was dumped outside a block of flats three miles away in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. Christina Koustouda, 32, who lives in the flats, was on her way out when she spotted the boy dressed in a suit and bow tie sitting up leaning against the front door.
Yesterday she told how she rescued the bawling infant, comforted him and changed his nappy, while her husband phoned the police.
The baby’s parents were so grateful that they invited the couple to a party to celebrate his first birthday yesterday, a day after his abduction at 12.44pm on Saturday.
Mrs Koustouda, who has a 14-month-old daughter, said: ‘He was screaming and crying but he was leaning on the door so I couldn’t open it without him falling over and banging his head.
‘The door opens outwards so I had to get down on my knees and open the door slightly and hold the baby and then gradually push the door open.
‘It was really weird, there was no one around and he was dressed very smartly like a little groom with a black suit and bow tie. My husband called the police and they were there within two minutes.’
Mrs Koustouda, a food technologist, continued: ‘I changed him into one of my daughter’s nappies and gave him some water and tried to calm him down. The mum and dad arrived about half an hour later and it was only then that he stopped crying, but then everyone else started crying.
‘The parents were so relieved to see him, the mum was screaming and crying, the dad was crying, I was crying, my husband was crying and even the policeman started crying. The mum was so grateful she kept thanking me.’ Mrs Kous- touda’s husband Lyes, 32, an engineering inspector, said: ‘You see these things in the movies, but you never think they could happen in real life.
‘Thank goodness he wasn’t toddling. He could have wandered off and anything could have happened.’
The car was found abandoned later that day a mile away in another street in Cheshunt. Yesterday a friend of the baby’s 27- year- old mother told how the carjacker struck after she went into the shop to buy snacks for the children.
He said: ‘The girl threw herself out when the car was moving. It was amazing how she managed to open the door. She was wearing heels as well.
‘She just rolled out. She was in tears and was screaming, “the baby, the baby”. She has a scratched arm and bruises, but was otherwise physically unharmed. The mum is absolutely traumatised.’
A police helicopter was dispatched to search for the car, while officers attempted to track the signal of the mother’s iPhone left in the car.
After an agonising hour, the family were told the baby had been found unhurt. Incredibly, the family later went on to the wedding, although they missed the church service.
Yesterday Scotland Yard appealed for help in tracing the carjacker. He is white, in his late teens, with light hair in a spiky style and may have been wearing a hooded top.