Baby

The body of a newly-born male child was found in a passage off of Yorkshire Street in Rochdale.

It had been wrapped up in a sheet of brown paper, a cotton article and a black apron and tied up with string.

It was found by a confectioner who worked on Yorkshire Street lying in the passage that led into Eastgate Street but he thought it was rubbish at first and didn't pick it up until about an hour and a half later. He opened the parcel up and found the body of the child but he didn't take it to the police station until 1.45pm although he said he knew he should have informed the police immediately.

The coroner said that the confectioner had brought suspicion on himself by not communicating the matter sooner but the confectioner denied any knowledge of the matter,

A doctor who carried out the post-mortem said that the body was of a fully developed child and had discolouration around the neck and had been dead for 4-7 hours. He said that the child had lived for at least 10 minutes.

He said that there was evidence in the child's throat as though it had been strangled at first and then had something tied round its neck killing it. He said that death was due to strangulation.