Baby Callum Relief as mystery death is solved after 25 years

Beth Colbourne was walking out of Chester crown court when she got the email that brought an end to one of the longest baby death mysteries in recent times. It started: "Are you sitting down?" As an officer in Cheshire constabulary's major crime review team, DC Colbourne had the job of solving a puzzle that had confounded police for 25 years: the identity of Baby Callum.

- Josh Halliday

The newborn boy had been found wrapped in two bin bags by a dog walker in woodland near Warrington on the morning of 14 March 1998, sparking a nationwide search for his parents. The discovery had a profound effect on the Cheshire town. Hundreds of young women were questioned. Schoolgirls were swabbed for DNA. The abandoned baby was buried in a tiny white coffin after a funeral paid for by donations at an Asda supermarket. Yet still no one came forward.

But then, a quarter of a century later, a routine review identified a close match between Callum and the DNA of a man whose profile had been uploaded to the national database after an unrelated arrest. His name was Matthew Sharkey, now 28. Further tests confirmed he was the older brother of Callum. "That's quite a significant moment," said Colbourne, who retires in two months.

The chance discovery led to the knock on the door that Joanne Sharkey, now 55, said she had been expecting for 25 years.