Murder probe opened after infant's death

LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) A murder investigation has been launched following the ''suspicious'' death of a 17-month-old boy, police said today.

Scotland Yard has arrested a 25-year-old woman and a 31-year-old man on suspicion of murder following the death of the infant.

He was taken to North Middlesex Hospital, Enfield, north London, on August 3 and died later that day of his injuries, a spokesman for Scotland Yard said.

He declined to discuss the boy's injuries.

Hospital staff alerted police after they became concerned.

Officers arrested the woman at the hospital. The man was later arrested at a north London police station.

Both were bailed pending further inquiries.

They are due to see police again later this month.

Neither has been charged.

A post-mortem examination was carried out on the boy at Great Ormond Street Hospital on August 6, but was inconclusive.

Further tests are being carried out and child abuse officers are awaiting the results.

''The death is being treated as suspicious. Officers from the Child Abuse Investigation Command are investigating,'' the police spokesman said.

He said an independent ''serious case review'', involving various agencies, had been commissioned, a routine procedure in suspected child abuse cases.

The identity of the dead child is not being disclosed to protect the identity of his siblings.

News of the death comes after a young mother and her partner were jailed for life on Friday for murdering her four-year-old daughter after subjecting the child to horrific abuse.

Sharon Wright, 23, and Peter McKenzie-Seaton, 22, were found guilty at Bradford Crown Court of killing Leticia Wright, who was found naked and suffering multiple injuries, including to her head and abdomen, equivalent to a major road traffic accident.

A spokesman for Kirklees Council in Huddersfield, where the child lived, defended its handling of the case, which included a review carried out by an independent professional, but conceded that certain aspects could ''have been handled differently''.

REUTERS JT VC1722