Nigerian Man Finally Reunites With a Baby He Found in a Phone Box 22 Years Ago

Kiran Sheikh and Joe Campbell afer they were reunited

 

The man identified as Joe Campbell was able to save a baby girl from death when he found her abandoned in a phone box.

 

22 years after, the man has been reunited with the now grown-up girl, Kiran Sheikh.

 

While trying to look for him, all Kiran Sheikh, 22, knew about the man that found her is that his name is John or Joe Campbell and that he is Nigerian.

 

She then tried to find him by all means.

 

Following an appeal run in the Metro for the man who saved her, Kiran Sheikh was brought together with Joe Campbell for a sit down after the fateful day in 1994 when he discovered her.

 

Campbell had initially thought the small bundle was a “bag of chips,” before discovering the contents were far more precious.

 

According to The Metro, Sheikh’s biological mother made the decision to abandon her daughter because she was trapped in an abusive relationship.

 

She then called charity group the Samaritans to inform them of what she had done and pleading for them to come quickly for the baby.

 

But before they arrived at the call box in Forest Gate, east London, she was found by Campbell, then 30, who called the police and rushed her to Newham General Hospital before charity workers arrived.

 

Officers launched an appeal to try and find the abandoned baby’s mum but didn't find her until two years later, when she was hospitalised while giving birth to her eighth child.

 

By that time, the she had been adopted by a Pakistani family who called her Kiran.

 

Shaikh never met her mother, who has been identified as an English woman, and hasn't met her biological father, a Jamaican and Indian man who is in prison in Canada for attempted murder after he stabbed another ex-girlfriend 30 times.

 

Campbell, now 52, shared how he sent gifts and birthday cards for the first five years of Sheikh’s life before being instructed by social services to cut ties.

 

“I was allowed a picture with her, which I kept,” added Campbell, who revealed how he asked about adopting the infant himself, but was turned down as he was not married.

 

The father-of-five was alerted about Sheikh’s appeal for her hero in The Metro by a colleague who saw the story.

 

The 52-year-old explained: “A colleague showed it to me when he saw my name, and was sure it was me. I said ‘no’. Then I saw her photograph and I was overcome, I was so happy.”

 

Sheikh, who is a mother to a two-year-old, told the newspaper: “He says anyone would have done what he did, but they wouldn’t. It’s so amazing to have been reunited with him. He’s my hero. We lived down the road from each other for years, we must have passed each other, I can’t believe we were so close.”

“She has a family waiting for her now, my children will love to meet her. I’m so grateful we have been brought together,” Campbell added.