Missing baby's parents in a sleepless ordeal

THE PARENTS of Abbie Humphries are 'on their knees' six days after their four-hour-old daughter was abducted from a Nottingham hospital, police said last night, writes Mary Braid.

Karen, 32, and Roger, 33, Humphries have hardly eaten or slept since Abbie was taken from the maternity unit of Queen's Medical Centre by a woman dressed as a nurse on Friday afternoon.

Detective Sergeant Mick Roberts, who has been close to the couple during the ordeal, said: 'They are very distressed, very anxious and are spending each day sitting by the phone waiting for that call to say, 'We have found Abbie'.'

After six days without news, police in the Irish Republic have urged a woman to come forward so she could be eliminated from the investigation.

Police in Dublin have received a phone call from a woman who said she met an English woman on a bus going to the Dublin suburb of Tallaght on Monday. She said the woman told her she was from the Leeds area and had arrived that day on a ferry from Holyhead. She was was on her way to link up with members of her family and then travel on to Ennis, County Clare.

She said her parents had recently left England and moved to the Ennis area. She was described as having an English accent, slim, 5ft 2ins, about 20, with shoulder-length dark hair and freckles.

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