A man has admitted stealing a car with two children inside, before abandoning the baby on a doorstep.

Martin Cawley was high on drugs when he got into a parked car and drove off during the incident last month in north London after the children's mother had gone into a nearby shop.

A 12-year-old girl, who was in the vehicle with an 11-month-old baby, escaped and rolled out onto the road a short time after the car moved off from Kempe Road in Enfield on July 2.

The baby boy was found, uninjured, on the doorstep of a house in Guinevere Gardens, Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, after what the judge called an "entirely traumatic" incident.

The car was discovered later in Coopers Walk, Cheshunt.

The 19-year-old, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty at Wood Green Crown Court, to kidnap, child abduction and aggravated vehicle taking.

Prosecutor Nick Cribb, who said Cawley had admitted being high on drugs at the time, said it was "perhaps only fortunate nothing worse befell that child" before he was found by a member of the public, adding that the case "represents every parent's worst nightmare".

Judge Noel Lucas QC said: "It must have been entirely traumatic for the children but unbelievably so for the mother."

Cawley had refused to come to court from Pentonville prison on Thursday and again this morning, apparently demanding to see a family member before entering a plea.

He arrived, dressed in a grey tracksuit, after the judge made an order that he be brought to the dock by "whatever means necessary".

Cawley is due to be sentenced on October 14.