THE head of the Portuguese orphanage where a Basingstoke mother's abandoned baby is being cared for has expressed "amazement" that no-one from the family has contacted them.

Luis Villas-Boas, director of the Refugio Aboim Ascensao home in Faro where three-month-old Charlie is being looked after, told The Gazette: "I am still waiting for someone from the family to contact us to ask how the baby is - I am amazed that they have not done so.

"In fact the baby is fine - happy and smiling - but I would have thought they would have got in touch with us. The British consul has visited him to see that he is alright."

Baby Charlie's mother is 23-year-old Katherine Penny (pictured), of Lambs Row, Lychpit.

She and the baby's father Mark Beddoes, 29, were questioned by British police after their baby son was found in his pram in a street near Faro airport.

Police said neither had committed a crime in this country but could be extradited to Portugal to face a charge of abandoning a baby.

Senor Villas-Boas said: "I would like to see the baby go back to the family. A baby has a right to life and a right to be with his family.

"But in view of what has happened I doubt if the courts would return the child to his parents.

"Once six months has passed, then the child automatically becomes a Portuguese citizen and is put up for adoption."

Senor Villas-Boas explained that he has now been given authority by a judge at the Family and Minors court to make decisions on behalf of the baby, who has a cleft palate, and hoped to arrange an operation to correct this within the next week.

Miss Penny's parents, Mike and Lynn Penny - both social workers employed by Hampshire County Council - already care for her four-year-old daughter Ellie who lives with them at their home in Lambs Row.

A former barmaid at Lychpit's Cromwell Inn, Miss Penny had been working for a time-share company in Portugal when she had her son.