Student nurse tried to kidnap baby after lying to bigamous husband she had given birth to twins, jury told
The student nurse who tried to kidnap a baby from New Cross Hospital was "desperately" trying to maintain a lie to her bigamous husband she had given birth, a court heard.
The jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court where Safia Ihmadei is standing trial for conspiring to kidnap a premature baby was told yesterday the 36-year-old had spun a web of lies which had got out of control.
The separated mother of two was in a bigamous marriage with her husband who was struggling to conceive with his first wife and told him she was expecting twins.
Prosecutor Seamran Sidhu outlined the events which led up to Ihmadei being arrested at New Cross Hospital on February 14 and charged with attempted kidnap.
She said: "The police discovered the personal circumstances of the defendant which forms part of the prosecution's case.
"She became the second wife of Ibraham, I say second wife because he was already married, he and his were struggling to conceive. Safia told him she was pregnant with twins. And she told him she was due in December 2023. That date came and no babies came.
"In January, she told him the babies had been born in mid January, and then she told him one of the babies had died, it had been starved of oxygen."
She said: "She may indeed have wanted to dupe her husband into believing she was pregnant, but then became increasingly desparate to fulfil the like she alone had created. That is why she decided and went about kidnapping a baby and passing it as her own."
Ihmadei, of Upper Vauxhall, Wolverhampton, was a first year student nurse at the University of Wolverhampton and used her ID to gain access to New Cross Hospital's neo-natal unit. Nurses became suspicious of her on February 13 after she befriended the mother of a premature baby during what the prosecution described as a "scouting operation" to find a child to kidnap.
On February 14, after being told her strange behaviour had led to her being suspended from her nursing course and banned from New Cross Hospital, she again tried to gain access to where the baby was being cared for.
After being spotted by nurses, she was arrested. When her car was searched officers found new baby clothes, a new baby comforter, a passport and £1,500 in cash, which Miss Sidhu claimed was so she could flea with the baby.
The trial is expected to last four days.
Ihmadei denies the charge of conspiring to kidnap.