Faro mother 'abandoned first baby'

Katherine Penny, the woman who abandoned her three-month-old baby in Portugal, also deserted her first child it emerged today.

Close associates of Ms Penny told how two years ago she abandoned her daughter Ellie - then aged two - and fled her home town of Lychpit, near Basingstoke.

Ellie was discovered alone one or two days later when Ms Penny's parents - Michael and Lynne - grew concerned over their daughter's disappearance and let themselves into her house.

A close friend of the family, who acted as Ms Penny's "unpaid nanny" when she lived in Lychpit, said news of the abandonment of baby Charles had served as a shocking reminder of the earlier treatment of Ellie.

The 19-year-old office worker, who asked not to be named, met Ms Penny when she began working with her at the Cromwell Inn in Lychpit three years ago.

She said: "I was 16 at the time and as soon as I started working with her Katherine asked if I could help with the baby. Katherine was working full time and living with Ellie in a flat above the pub. The landlord put her up because she had nowhere else to stay.

"She was about 18 - and she just wanted to party. She often used to serve behind the bar while she was holding little Ellie in her arms, which struck most people as highly inappropriate. In the evenings she would leave Ellie alone upstairs and come down to drink. Ellie would always be screaming for her mum, but Katherine just ignored her.

"She expected other people to look after her child. Before long I basically became an unpaid nanny. Katherine just could not handle the responsibility. I was for ever buying food and nappies for Ellie myself. All Katherine's earnings seemed to go on booze. Katherine just wasn't fit to be a mother."

According to the friend, Ms Penny's parents bought her a £90,000 house in the nearby town of Buckskin in the hope it would provide a more stable environment for Ellie, but within a year Katherine had run away to Bournemouth, leaving Ellie behind - without bothering to alert the authorities or her family. The friend said one of the main reasons Ms Penny fled her home town was an incident in which she crashed her employer's car while driving uninsured - leaving him with a bill for £5,000 worth of damage.

Ms Penny, 24, has been bailed to report to police at Poole on 21 February. She and her boyfriend Mark Beddoes, 29, have lain low since Dorset police finished questioning them about the abandonment of Charles, who suffers from a hare lip and cleft palate at Faro airport over the weekend.

It has emerged that neither Ms Penny nor Mr Beddoes have make a single phone call to check on his condition, since they returned to the UK five days ago. The orphanage caring for Charles has heard nothing from them, even though he faces an operation within days.