Fake social worker in Facebook plot to kidnap baby boy
A MOTHER described yesterday how she was tricked into handing her baby son over to a teenage girl who planned to kidnap him by posing as a social worker.
The 17-year-old had concocted an elaborate scheme to abduct the child, first obtaining the woman’s address by offering her free gifts on Facebook, then turning up at her home.
Mother Shantel Ullah, 20, was so convinced by the girl’s story that she handed her two-week-old son Dontae to the teenager, who claimed she needed to take him away for a 30-minute health check.
But before the girl could leave Miss Ullah sensed something was not right and snatched her baby back. Once the teenager left her home in Derby, she called police.
The teenager and a second 17year- old girl had set up a bogus Facebook page offering free children’s clothes in order to track down and target at least three babies. Officers discovered they had tried to abduct another infant in Huddersfield, as well as a third baby from Wolverhampton.
Yesterday Miss Ullah, who lives with her mother Michelle Wild, spoke of the moment one of the girls tried to take Dontae after turning up at her home last September.
‘She was dressed very professionally in black trousers, high heels and a black patterned blouse, and was carrying a designer handbag,’ she told The Sun. ‘She said I’d signed a form when I was pregnant to say she could take Dontae away for half an hour for a medical check.
‘ She l ooked very young, and seemed nervous. But when you have just had a baby you have all kinds of visitors. And she knew my full name, so it seemed genuine.’
Miss Ullah continued: ‘She asked if she could hold Dontae and I let her, which I now regret. Then she asked if I loved him and said, “He’s gorgeous”.’ But Miss Ullah said she knew she had not signed any such form – and her maternal instinct prevented her from letting the girl take the baby away. The teenager then said, ‘Oh, we’ll have to arrange another date then’, before leaving.
Miss Ullah said she ‘knew something wasn’t right’, and after contacting social services to confirm the girl was a fraud, she called police.
She branded the plotting teenagers ‘evil and heartless’ and claimed they had been watching her for months. ‘It’s like something out of a horror film. I still can’t believe it happened,’ she said. ‘They’d been watching me for months on Face- book, probably t hrough my entire pregnancy, before striking.
‘When I think about what happened, I break down and cry. I can’t stop thinking, “What if, what if?” ’
Miss Ullah fell victim to the pair’s social media con, in which they attracted new mothers to their Facebook page by offering baby clothes and other items cheaply.
Once someone visited their page they would send them a friend request, before contacting them offering special deals or free items.
Miss Ullah received text messages from one girl using the alias Clare, requesting her address to send her some free baby socks by designer Ralph Lauren and asking whether she lived alone. The teenagers, who cannot be named for legal reasons and one of whom is now 18, appeared at Derby Youth Court where they admitted conspiring to kidnap three babies in September last year.
Police found the 18-year-old had lied to her boyfriend and claimed to be pregnant to get him to stay with her. Detective Sergeant Duncan Gouck, of Derbyshire Police, said: ‘We believe that the intention was to get a baby which she would have pretended to have been her own.’
The 18-year- old, of Evesham, Worcestershire, and the 17-year-old, of Wolverhampton, were bailed until May when they will be sentenced.