Paralysed Penny Roberts has given birth to a baby boy less than a week after winning the right to keep the child.

The baby - which has been named Peter - weighed in at 6lbs at Airedale Hospital on Wednesday. It was three weeks premature.

Miss Roberts, 35, from Steeton, is said to be 'delighted' and both her and the baby are doing well.

Last Thursday social services - which it was feared would take the baby into care - announced that Miss Roberts would be allowed to keep the child. The decision was reached following a meeting between her, the baby's father Andrew Mitchell who lives in Portsmouth, and social services bosses.

Miss Roberts was paralysed three years ago after plunging 14,000 feet into a concrete Florida runway when her parachute failed to open properly.

Mike Stow, the council's assistant social services director, says she will receive additional support to assist with many of the physical tasks of caring for the baby.

Miss Roberts, a nurse by profession, is paralysed from the waist down and has limited use of her arms. She needs 24-hour care and lives in a specially-adapted terraced house.

Yesterday she refused to talk to local press. The rights of her story have been sold to a Sunday newspaper.

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