Briton Denies Snatching Baby From 15-year-old Romanian Mother

A British woman who has been accused of snatching a 7-month-old girl from a Romanian Gypsy in Athens denied the charges yesterday as she appeared in court for the first time.

In handcuffs, Marie Golby, 41, was presented before a public prosecutor accused of abducting the child for the purpose of illegal adoption, a crime that could mean 15 years in a Greek prison.

"I shouldn't be blamed for this. I didn't steal that baby," she said shortly before the hearing. "She abandoned it and I looked after it for two days. How could I [buy it] with €50 (£35)? No, I never wanted to do that. What happened is I gave her €50 for food and she just went off and never came back." Ms Golby, a waitress who has lived on and off in Greece for years, was arrested on Cephalonia on Friday after abandoning the baby at the island's local hospital.

Greek police said the accused - who is reportedly from Warwickshire - admitted snatching the little girl in Athens's busy Omonia Square last Tuesday. She is expected to testify before a magistrate today, but allegedly confessed to the crime after telling doctors she could no longer afford to look after the infant.

"When we asked her to provide identification for the child and she couldn't ... she eventually confessed saying that she had done it out of love for her boyfriend on Cephalonia," said Constantinos Zacharopoulos at security police headquarters in Athens. She had hoped to pass off the baby as her own after pretending to be pregnant, he said.

"She told him she had given birth in the UK. As he is a much younger man she said she felt it was the only way to hang on to him," the officer said.

When questioned by police the boyfriend, a barman, said he had been "very surprised" because Ms Golby had shown no signs of pregnancy.

The baby's 15-year-old Romanian mother, who has also been detained on charges of illegally trying to sell her child, immediately reported the case to police.

Three days later, as officers scoured the country for the missing child, authorities on Cephalonia were alerted to the case of a British woman abandoning a baby at the island's hospital. The girl is being cared for at the clinic's paediatric ward.

The teenager said Ms Golby had initially agreed to pay £10,000 for the baby.

In recent years an illegal baby trade has flourished in Greece. Invariably, the children are born to young women from the Balkans, desperate for money or trafficked by smugglers over the borders to Greece.

"The British woman had obviously heard about this illicit trade and agreed to meet the mother for the exchange," said Superintendent Giorgos Kakavas on Cephalonia. "From what we understand they had gone to buy new clothes for the baby in a supermarket when, suddenly, she vanished with the child."

Although illegal adoptions of newborns are thought to be rife in Greece - with babies fetching up to £17,000 - it is the first time a UK citizen has been accused of complicity in the trade.