Leaving kids for 5 minute late night walk?

How do you know the children were alone?
Maybe a friend was at the house, who had managed to slip past your surveillance post?.

it is wrong and unnecessary surely?
how many people does it take to walk a dog

I'm shocked at the number of posters defending the parents.

That is quite extreme, surely she has a phone … send her a message if you need to

The only acceptable “walk” would be within sight of the house eg my dog would be walked along the trees on my road, more a sniff than a walk because I was never more than 100m from my house and I only did that when they were older for starters and if exh was on a business trip.

Ermmmm maddie mccan??? It only takes a minute of absence. I’d report them

It seems weird they both need to go, especially for such a short amount of time, but how do you know someone isn’t staying with them?

This!

I’m thinking of the 4 boys who died in the house fire in Sutton while they were asleep and their mum popped to the shops

You talk nonsense.
Of course people should think about what happened to Madeleine McCann when thinking about leaving young children alone.
Not only that, what if one of the children suffered a medical emergency. A choking fit or anaphylaxis? A wasp or a bee is somewhere indoors and stings a child? A fall, a convulsion etc, etc. What if one has a nightmare and wakes up in distress and in doing so frightens the other child? It’s completely irresponsible to leave young children at home on their own even if it is just for 5 minutes or so.

Are there no laws about windows guards for accessible windows when there are young children in the home there?

I totally disagree with you that that scenario is nonsense. The fact that you assume that if there was a fire it would start downstairs in the furthest away corner of the house, is what is nonsense imo. I will give you a few examples of my points of view.

Many housefires start in a kitchen, and if, say a chip pan, went on fire, the flames would become ferocious very quickly, easily reaching the kitchen ceiling, if the children's bedroom was right above the kitchen, well it doesn't bare thinking about.

What if there was an electrical fault in the hall, at the bottom of the stairs, and the fire immediately started climbing the stairs - that open window might be the only chance of the children escaping...

What if there was an electrical fault in the socket next to their beds, and it went on fire?

Obviously, if any of those scenarios happened in the middle of the night when the parents were asleep in the next bedroom, and if for some reason, there wasn't a smoke alarm in any of the rooms, then tragically the poor children could still be overcome by the smoke, or even the fire itself. But if their parents had just been sleeping a few feet away, there would at least be a chance that they either heard some noise caused by the fire, or their children screaming... If the parents were outside, 2.5 minutes away, they might have never even got the chance to save their children.

Bad parents

Do you know for certain noone else was in the house?

I do agree with your sentiment @Pinkflamingo10, and I was devastated at that time about Madeleine's disappearance. I did secretly think to myself what on earth were the group of professional friends - with at least some of them being doctors no less - thinking in leaving their children unattended like that? This is the first time I have publicy given my thoughts on their parenting, as the McCann's have suffered far more since then than any parent should have to endure, and I felt much more sorrow for them than I ever felt at all judgemental about it.

However, even with the terrible disappearance of Madeleine, my first thought at that time was not that one of their children was likely to be kidnapped, but that what if there was a fire, or if one of the children had woken up scared and not knowing where either their Mum or Dad was. I don't know about the twins, and how capable either of them would have been to leave the apartment, but Madeleine was an almost 4 year old, so I am reasonably certain that she could have left the apartment under her own steam. What if she had done that and gone searching for her parents down by the swimming pool, they could have found her dead at the bottom of the pool? None of it bears thinking about, and I hope that her twin siblings managed to have a good childhood, with as few as possible nightmares to contend with.

So, even if it was unlikely that the children that the OP was referring to, would have been kidnapped, the chances of either one of the children waking up - maybe they would have heard the front door closing - and being really frightened if their Mum or Dad didn't come when they were called for, is reasonably high. On top of that, my cousin was killed by a car after having gone for a walk one evening, not long after he had married the love of his life. What if the Mum and Dad in the OP's scenario had been knocked down, and maybe not even killed, but taken to hospital unconscious, if no-one knew about those two dear children sleeping all alone in their house, there are various different catastrophes that could have happened to one, or other of them, before anyone realised they had been left at home alone.

So @OneOliveOtter, yes, I believe that those parents were very irresponsible, if you were one of them OP, would you do the same thing a second time?

When I was about five, I woke up to find no one in the house so I left and went to a house across the road thinking my mum might be there. Luckily the neighbour looked after me, anything could happen.

Did someone say they wouldn't leave their 10 and 13 year olds? For 5 minutes, asleep? Bloody hell. That is serious helicopter parenting.

It's fine if the distance is not far at all.
Neighbourhood calm, small dead end street.
They can see the house and time was only five minutes - fine by me.

If they were jogging a mile away and gone for over ten minutes, not fine at all. Busy, people all about, a through road - not at all fine for five minutes.
Circumstances matter.

My friend used to do this with her newborn when her husband worked late. Would leave her sleeping and take the dog round the block. Till her mother in law found out and started turning up at the house of an evening to “help” when she knew she was on her own. It’s not ok. The dog isn’t important enough to be leaving kids alone in the house.

Utterly unreasonable

@OneOliveOtter how do you know the kids are home alone and that they don’t have a granny staying ? Also how do you know so much about their window arrangements and how many times they’ve walked the dog if you live at the other end of a cul de sac and barely speak to them ?

Agree. It's too young.

Also, what would even be the benefit of a 5 minute walk?

Pointless and reckless.

It would speed first aid though...as in any ATTENDED accident / incident

3 minutes of bleeding out...would be different wouldn't it??

The facts:

"A house fire can take hold and become life-threatening in as little as 3 to 5 minutes. In under 30 seconds, a small flame can spin out of control, and within minutes, flashover can occur—where everything in a room spontaneously ignites."

Minute-by-Minute Breakdown

The spread of a fire moves incredibly fast, following a dangerous, progressive timeline:

0–30 Seconds: A small ignition turns into a major fire and starts to spread.

1–2 Minutes: Thick, toxic smoke fills the room. Temperatures rise drastically, and smoke layers descend rapidly.

3 Minutes: Heavy smoke spills into adjacent rooms, and the air becomes dangerous to breathe.

3–5 Minutes: Flashover occurs. The room becomes completely engulfed in flames, and the fire becomes virtually impossible to control without professional equipment.

Why Fires Spread Faster Today

While occupants 30 years ago had roughly 15 to 17 minutes to escape a burning home, today you typically have only 3 to 4 minutes.

This rapid acceleration is due to two main factors:

Synthetic Furnishings: Modern homes contain high amounts of petroleum-based plastics, foams, and synthetic fabrics, which burn much faster and hotter than natural fibers.

Open Layouts: Modern open-concept floor plans and larger rooms allow oxygen to feed the fire and flames to travel across the house unhindered.

We are currently in a heatwave ..you don't think electrical items coukd overheat and start a fire?

This is Mumsnet where there's imagined to be a child snatching arsonist on every corner waiting for a child to be left alone with no parent in the house or garden.
I'm sure they also never cross the road unless there's a lollipop person or traffic lights, and never drive full stop.
In the real world, you know your children best so if you think they'll be fine, fine.