THE father of a baby girl returned to her family after she was abducted from hospital last night described the "crushing desperation" he and his wife felt during the ordeal.

Richard and Deanne Rice's daughter, Elizabeth, was taken from the cot she was in with her identical twin sister, Susannah, at Wordsley Hospital in Stourbridge, West Midlands, on Monday.

The child is now back with her family at their Stourbridge home after police recovered her from an address following a tip-off.

Mr Rice, 30, said he initially thought somebody else's child had gone missing when he went to ward F4 at the hospital to visit his wife, 32, on Monday.

Mrs Rice had gone to sleep after feeding and changing Elizabeth and Susannah.

Awoken by concerned hospital staff carrying out a headcount of babies on the ward, Mrs Rice raised the alarm after looking at the cot and realising only one of her daughters was in it.

Her husband said: "You never think it's yours. It's always somebody else's. I was in shock, I was absolutely devastated."

Asked how he felt during the seven-hour ordeal, Mr Rice added: "Just absolute crushing desperation. You cannot believe what you have heard."

Shortly before 8.30pm, a police officer telephoned them to say that a baby had been found and was being cared for at another hospital.

Leaving his wife and their other 16-month-old daughter, Mr Rice drove to the hospital. "The whole drive there I was just praying, 'Oh please, it has got to be her'," he said.

* An 18-year-old woman was last night charged with kidnapping baby Elizabeth. The teenager, from Dudley, will appear before magistrates today.

Two men aged 73 and 52, and another women, aged 27, were released without charge after being arrested following the recovery of Elizabeth.