Woman arrested in alleged baby kidnap

• Tweet

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Police in New Zealand say a woman allegedly tried to kidnap a baby from a hospital and managed to get the infant to a parked car before being stopped.

Police said Neha Narayan carried the baby out of Middlemore Hospital in Auckland to a waiting car after being handed the 1-day-old girl by a staff member who assumed she was the mother, The (Wellington) Dominion Post reported Tuesday.

Narayan was stopped when the infant's parents saw her leaving and alerted hospital staff, the newspaper reported.

Police said Narayan, 24, had falsely claimed to be pregnant for nine months before telling her partner she was overdue and needed to be taken to hospital to have labor induced.

She allegedly spent several hours "moving through the birthing unit attempting to uplift [abduct] a child," Counties Manukau police spokeswoman Ana-Mari Gates-Bowey said.

Police arrested Narayan and charged her with abduction of a young person.