More than three decades after a newborn baby was discovered abandoned inside a West London phone box, the woman has formed a close family bond with the man who found her.

April Paul, now 32, was just hours old when she was left inside a telephone box on April 30, 1994. Her umbilical cord was still attached when Joe Campbell discovered her in the early hours of the morning.

At the time, Campbell was 30 and had no idea that the baby he had found would eventually become someone he considered part of his family. Campbell initially believed he had spotted what looked like a discarded bag of chips when he approached the phone box. It was only when he realised there was a newborn baby inside that he understood the seriousness of what he had found.

He immediately contacted the police, who arrived alongside an ambulance and took the baby to safety.

April was subsequently adopted by a family when she was three years old, giving her a new home and upbringing away from the circumstances of her birth. However, Campbell never forgot about the baby he had found that night. He had wanted to remain involved in April's life and had even asked whether he could adopt her himself, but he was told this was not possible because he was unmarried at the time. He was also prevented from maintaining contact with April while she was growing up.

Despite this, the experience stayed with him for years. April, meanwhile, grew up knowing about the circumstances surrounding her birth and eventually became determined to find the man who had discovered her as a newborn.

When she was 22, she launched a public appeal in an attempt to track down Campbell. The appeal eventually reached him, and after 22 years apart, the pair were finally reunited in 2016. Their reunion did not become a one-off meeting. Instead, the relationship has developed into a close bond which has continued for the past decade, with April now describing Campbell and his family as her own.

April, who works at a bank and lives in West London, said: “Joe is complete family. It’s like I was adopted again but in the right way this time around. His kids are my siblings now. We’re so close, we stay at each other’s houses. He never stopped thinking about me. I don’t know what this man is – an angel.”

The pair now see each other nearly every week, with April referring to Campbell as her “guardian angel” and describing him as much more than simply the stranger who found her as a baby. She said:

“Joe saved my life 32 years ago, but he’s so much more than the man who found me.”

Their relationship has also extended to Campbell's children, whom April considers to be her siblings. The pair regularly spend time together and visit one another's homes, creating the family connection that April never expected to have with the man who first encountered her on the night she was abandoned.

While April has found answers and a sense of connection through Campbell, one part of her past remains unresolved. She has spent years wondering about her birth mother and why she was left alone as a newborn. Around the time April was reunited with Campbell, efforts were also made to find her birth mother.

April managed to visit her mother's home in 2016 and had a brief conversation with her, but there was no lasting relationship between them and she has not heard from her since. Now, a decade after that encounter, April says she has reached the point where she believes she may never receive the answers she has wanted throughout her life. She said:

“The truth is I absolutely do still want answers from my mum. I think a part of me probably always will. I wish more than anything that I could understand why she left me and have the answers to questions I’ve carried around my whole life. But realistically, I don’t think I’m ever going to get those answers from her.”

April has also acknowledged that continuing to search for those answers has become emotionally difficult. She said:

“Continuing to search and holding onto the hope that I might eventually get them is actually causing me more hurt. My daughter said to me the other day, ‘Mum, how do you know how to be a mum when you never had one?’ I said, ‘it’s just natural, you know that.’ She said, ‘why couldn’t your mum be your mum?’ I just said, ‘I don’t know’.”

Becoming a mother herself has given April another perspective on the events surrounding her own birth. The questions from her daughter have also highlighted the part of her childhood that she cannot explain, particularly why her biological mother chose to leave her when she was only hours old.

Despite those unanswered questions, April's relationship with Campbell has given her a connection to someone who was present at one of the most significant moments of her life, even though he could not remain involved during her childhood. That bond has continued despite the passage of time, and Campbell remains a regular presence in April's life.

More recently, April recalled how Campbell continued to look out for her even while recovering from knee surgery. Campbell had been struggling with problems with his knees for years and had delayed having an operation because of his responsibilities towards his children and his need to continue working.

Three weeks before April spoke about the situation, Campbell had undergone knee surgery. His children had planned to visit April at her home for dinner, but Campbell decided to make the journey himself despite still recovering from the operation.

April said:

“Three weeks ago Joe had knee surgery as he’d been struggling at work with his knees for years. He put off the operation as he couldn’t not work for his kids and stuff. He’d just had operation anyway and his kids had planned to come over to my house for dinner. Joe turned up limping after his operation – he wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

She recalled being surprised to see him and said: “I said ‘what are you doing here?’ Of course he brought me loads of shopping, gifts and perfume. He’s the type of man you would call in the middle of the night and he would come straight away”. The gesture is another example of how the relationship between the pair has evolved far beyond their original meeting.

For Campbell, April was once a newborn he happened to discover inside a phone box. For April, he has become a trusted member of her family and someone she describes as an angel and guardian figure.

The circumstances of their first meeting were extraordinary, but their continued relationship has given the story a very different ending from the uncertainty that surrounded April's first hours of life.

April is now trying to give something back to the man she believes changed the course of her life by raising funds to help Campbell retire early. The fundraising effort comes as Campbell continues working despite his ongoing knee problems and recent surgery.

More than 30 years after he stopped to investigate what he initially believed was a discarded bag, the connection between Campbell and the baby he rescued has endured.

April may still have questions about why she was abandoned and whether she will ever hear from her birth mother again, but she has found another family connection in the man who made sure she was not left alone that night. Today, the pair continue to see each other nearly every week, with a chance encounter in a West London phone box in 1994 having ultimately developed into a lifelong relationship.