11:26am Wednesday 3rd April 2002
Police this week said solving the mystery of a ten-year-old Ethiopian girl dumped outside Kingsbury Tube station had been a "frustrating" process.
Barnet Social Services and police at Whetstone's child protection unit have been talking to officials in Ethiopia to try to establish the identity of the girl found abandoned on December 3. She was discovered outside the Tube station in Kingsbury Road by an Ethiopian minicab driver.
"You really depend on other people doing the work for you now in a country [Ethiopia] where they don't have the best police system in the world," said Detective Sergeant Ian Crank, who is leading the investigation. "In that respect it is quite frustrating you have got no control over what happens."
Det Serg Crank has been in touch with officers in Ethiopia via Interpol and is still trying to establish the girl's name. "She told us her name was Mary Solomon but they have said there is no girl missing by that name.
"We have still got doubts that really is her name and we are still trying to confirm it now," he said. The girl is currently staying with a foster family and a woman has been arrested and bailed in connection with abandoning her.
"We have got to decide what happens to Mary. Does she stay in the UK or go back to Ethiopia and who is going to look after her in the short, medium and long term," Det Serg Crank added.
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