Parents fight for sick baby

NEWCASTLE, England -- A baby born with half a face has been placed under police protection to prevent her parents removing her from hospital.

The two-month-old girl was born with a rare condition, Goldenhar Syndrome, that left her without a right eye and ear, half her nose and half her jaw.

She underwent treatment in Saudi Arabia, where she was born, and doctors at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, northern England, want to carry out further tests.

Margaret Asquith, head of children's services, told the Press Association on Tuesday night: "Newcastle Social Services has assisted the hospital trust, in cooperation with the parents, to secure a 24-hour interim order to ensure that the baby remains in hospital.

"This will allow an opportunity for all the issues to be discussed fully and fairly before a higher court."

However, her parents have said they will not allow doctors to put a camera down her nose to investigate her body.

"No one is going to do an operation on our daughter that we feel she doesn't need," her mother Suzanne Taylor, 25, told the British Press Association.

The hospital took out a police protection order on Sunday to stop the parents removing the child from treatment.

Taylor accused medical staff of using her child as an "experiment" because Goldenhar Syndrome, which affects one in 500,000 births, was so rare.

The baby was the only one of triplets to survive the pregnancy and was born in December.

Her mother said she was shocked when she first saw her daughter but believed she was a "gift from God."

Her parents have since started a fundraising campaign to raise £500,000 to pay for surgery to rebuild her face before she reaches school age.

A spokesman for Newcastle City Council's social services department said the council and department were "working in co-operation with the hospital and police to ensure that the best interests of this baby are being met and she's receiving the appropriate treatment."