BBC bodyguard admits to burning body of tsunami baby…likening it to a ‘blocked toilet’

‘Nobody was watching. I walked over to the rubbish, which night after night would pile high in the streets waiting for the authorities to burn the next day by the side of the roads to stave off the threat of rats. Removing some cardboard from the tip, I covered the baby with it.
‘I heard a voice say, “What’s that Craig?” It was Bob, the Australian paramedic who was staying next door to us. I walked towards him. He didn’t need me to answer. “What are you going to do?” he asked.
‘My response was instant and came from the mouth of a soldier in the zone and on autopilot. My sole priority was to protect the BBC crew from infection.
‘ “I’m going to burn it,” I answered. “That’s the best thing to do.” ’
Bob went to get some petrol from a jerrycan as Summers laid the baby on a box in the centre of the rubbish. The BBC bodyguard then soaked the body in petrol and set fire to it. When the flames burned down ten minutes later, the two men bagged up the smouldering rubbish.

‘I didn’t look to see the remains of the baby,’ Summers writes, ‘both our heads were looking down while shovelling.
‘Nothing was said. We just got on with it. We may have left a skull on the floor – I can’t recall. I just wanted it done.’
The incident was witnessed by BBC producer Peter Leng, who was standing in the doorway of the house used by the Corporation’s staff.
‘I had no choice but to come clean,’ Summers continued. ‘I told him we had to keep this to ourselves – I didn’t want anyone else to find out. “I wondered what all the flies were,” he replied. “How do you feel about it?”
‘ “It’s a sad situation but I am surprised someone has dumped it on our doorstep,” I answered bluntly. Only years later did Peter confess that he had told a couple of people – he also said he was grateful and couldn’t have done the same thing.’
Summers remains convinced that he did the right thing that day.
Justifying his behaviour, he writes: ‘I was working and this was the job I had to do. If they were still alive, I couldn’t give the parents that closure because there were no clues on the baby. I didn’t know how it got here but I felt sure it was orphaned and deliberately dumped. I couldn’t change its fate. I did what I had to do. There were no alternatives but to cremate the baby.

‘It was the most humane thing to do before it became riddled with maggots and was left to rot in the street. I couldn’t put a sign up outside the house saying: “One ex-baby here – please knock.’’
‘If the parents hadn’t died, why would it be dumped?’
Last night Summers told The Mail on Sunday: ‘At the time we felt it was the easiest and most humane thing to do. There were a quarter of a million dead people there and the majority were being dumped in open pits.
‘The baby was completely unidentifiable – it was infested with maggots and there were no features on it at all.’
A BBC spokeswoman said last night: ‘It’s his account, which he has put into context.
‘From our point of view, we don’t have anything to say. We don’t discuss private conversations but managers sometimes talk to staff, or former staff, who have written books about the BBC – particularly if there are legal or safety issues.’
Last night Peter Leng did not wish to comment and Ben Brown did not respond to calls.

Daily Mail