A LONDON police officer on holidays in Manhattan has had her baby taken away after she left him unattended in her hotel room.
The New York Post reports on the case of Louise Fielden, 42, who was yesterday forced to leave New York without her son, Samuel, who has been placed in foster care.
She has launched a massive law suit and legal effort to get him back.
The Post says the drama started in April, when Louise checked into the Chelsea Highline Hotel for two weeks.
The hotel has some private rooms, and some common areas, where food can be prepared. It’s cheap by New York standards, and there are some permanent residents.
A hotel employee has told the New York courts that she discovered Louise’s son, then 15 months old, alone in Louise’s hotel room. He was sleeping in a cot.
Louise says she was in the common area, sterilizing her sons bottles, and preparing food for him. The hotel says it was the second time they found Samuel unattended in the hotel.
The baby was placed in foster care, and Louise was charged with child neglect. She refused to plead guilty, arguing that it was common in England and elsewhere for mothers to leave sleeping toddlers alone for short periods of time.
Louise has been fighting the case since April but was forced to leave New York this week. She says her son has been ‘kidnapped’ and is being ‘held hostage’ and that he is staying with a foster mother whose values are very different from her own.
Louise has been a London police officer for more than 13 years. She was charged with resisting arrest when police came to the hotel with child services to take her baby.
She says the foster mother is ‘founder and president of “Single Women in Support of Homos” while she is the product of a “conservative upbringing in the Church of England.’
The New York Daily News quotes magistrate Judge Steven Gold urging the parties ‘to try and settle the matter without prolonged litigation.
“Everybody wants that young person in the right place as soon as possible,” Gold said.
