Police investigating the disappearance of a new mother and her baby have found a body of a woman – but the whereabouts of the four-day old child remain unknown.
The family of 30-year-old Charlotte Bevan, who vanished from Bristol Maternity Hospital with her daughter, have been informed of the discovery of the body in the Avon Gorge. A formal identification of the body will take place today, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Bevan was last seen leaving the maternity unit with her baby girl, Zaani Tiana, on Tuesday evening. Hours before she went missing, she had posted a self-help video on her Facebook page entitled "Get through positive and negative thinking rough patches."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
She did not have a coat or shoes and is thought to have been wearing hospital slippers, while her baby was wrapped only in blankets.
Temperatures overnight in the city were close to freezing. Her family made a desperate appeal for information yesterday, as the police search continued.
A spokesman for University Hospitals Bristol, which runs St Michael's Hospital, said Ms Bevan discharged herself for "reasons unknown to us" and there were no signs she was planning to leave.
"Charlotte and her baby were seen by staff at 20.30. When staff went to check on her at 21.05 they found Charlotte and her baby missing and immediately sounded the alarm," he said.
A friend of Bevan wrote on Facebook that her disappearance was "out of character".