Faro mum: I want my baby back

The mother who abandoned her baby in Portugal realises she has made a terrible mistake and is 'desperate' to have him back, it was claimed last night.

Katherine Penny and her boyfriend Mark Beddoes left three-month-old Charles on a housing estate near Faro airport two weeks ago.

But now the couple have said they would do everything they could to have him back.

'All I want now is to have my little Charlie back. I want to bring him back to England,' 23-year-old Miss Penny is reported to have said.

Paul Green, the couple's best friend who has been helping them to remain in hiding after it emerged they had dumped their child, said they felt 'deeply misunderstood'.

Speaking on their behalf, the 26-year-old hotel chef said: 'Yes, Kathy abandoned the baby but there were a lot of difficulties and a lot of things going on. There were a lot of reasons behind it. She was very distressed.

'She and Mark are so upset that people are saying they don't love Charlie. They want him back more than anything despite what people think.'

The penniless couple have spent the last week at a secret address in poor conditions.

'They are very depressed about the situation,' he said.

The couple wanted to make their feelings public after authorities in Portugal had said they did not want their son, who faces surgery shortly for a cleft palate, back.

Mr Beddoes, 29, and Miss Penny have employed solicitors and have met social services staff in Bournemouth to find out how they can get Charles back. Mr Beddoes, who is standing by his girlfriend despite claiming she duped him into thinking she had left the baby in care, said: 'My only concern is the welfare and safe return of my son Charles.' But it had also emerged that Miss Penny abandoned her first child two years ago.

Friends told how she left her daughter Ellie, then two, and fled her home town of Lychpit, near Basingstoke, Hampshire.

Ellie was discovered one or two days later when Miss Penny's parents, Michael and Lynne, grew concerned over their daughter's disappearance and let themselves into the house.

The couple won custody of the little girl and are thought to have not spoken to their daughter since.

They were unaware she had even had a second child until they heard on the news.

Last night it was claimed that Miss Penny's parents have also been liaising with the judge at the family court in Faro who will rule on who should care for Charles.

Another friend, who shared a caravan at the Algarve timeshare where the couple worked until this month, described Mr Beddoes as a 'heavy drinker' who had become abusive and violent when drunk.

The 24-year-old, now living in Plymouth, told how Miss Penny denied she was pregnant until the birth because she feared Mr Beddoes would leave her.

However, the friend added: 'In the end Mark became a proud father and they lived together in a caravan. She loved the baby, they both did.'

'As far as I knew everything was going well for them. I couldn't believe it when I heard about it and what they were supposed to have done.'