Pauper's grave for Beale baby

In a macabre twist to the ordeal of Caroline Beale, the Briton accused of killing her baby at birth and trying to smuggle it out of America, it emerged yesterday that the child had been buried in a pauper's cemetery in sight of the jail where Ms Beale was held for eight months, writes David Usborne in New York.

Ms Beale, who will fly back to London tonight after a plea bargain last week, had been assured the baby's corpse was being held in a state morgue.The body will now be disinterred and cremated and the ashes returned to England.

Officials at the New York Medical Examiner's Office revealed the corpse of the child, named Olivia Ann by her mother, was buried in Potter's Field, a cemetery reserved for paupers, shortly before Christmas.

Michael Dwyer, the British consul in New York, said he was "stunned" that the medical examiner's office would release the body without telling anyone.