AIBU to think that a stranger collecting a baby from a nursery is a massive safeguarding issue?

Bollocks to that. He'd end up on a tik tok without consent for thousands to claim he's lying and was intent upon harming the kid. And she'd make even more money from that.

I’ve been watching the mums tik toks about this since it happened, she is worried about things that have been mentioned in this post because:

• The story from the nursery has changed multiple times, at first she was told the girl was sleeping and the grandad only noticed it wasn’t her when she woke up in the car and then it changed to she was awake, which was confirmed after watching the cctv.

Disgusting

As the mum of a nonverbal child, I fear leaving her alone for a second, because you just dont know

Theyve done the right thing going to the press. Hope they sue tbh

I nearly did the same @QuillBill. One kids childminder was very like another kids gran, i had mentally made note of this. I knew both so nothing suspicious there when they call to the door. One day the gran, Susan had sunglasses and I said hi then called the other kid, thinking it was the childminder. I paused at the door and asked him 'do you see Kate' (just to be sure) and he pointed to Susan and walked towards her. I shut the door, that's where it became an issue, susan immediately rang and said hey you gave me Tom. Poor Tom was surprised too because he made the same mistake, they really were like twins. I nearly died, I had to report it to the Manager and explain it over and over. I have to admit I was secretly pleased when the manager made the exact same mistake in reverse a few days later. She was admant that Kate who was wearing sunglasses was Gran Susan only I was there to jump in and correct her. A few weeks later my colleague did the same thing and again I had to jump in. It sounds ridiculous but the resemblance was uncanny. It really is easy make potentially very serious mistakes

How can you say with certainty that it would it lead 100% to trauma....

Is that actually clear though?
The nursery and the grandad both lied about the child being asleep but the cctv footage proves this isn’t true and there was a significant period of interaction between the grandad, nursery workers and child over a period of about 10 minutes before he left the premises.

The nursery HAVE him the wring child, he didn't ask for the wrong one. If the grandfather is a paedophile, as your insinuating, who only picks his grandkid up to abuse her, it seems unlikely he'd have risked anything if he'd recognised the baby was the wring one, given he'd shortly have access to his own grandchild.

It is, without question, awful of the nursery but turning the grandad into a paedophile because he didn't pay attention to the kid isn't helpful

I'm as certain (probably) as you that the guy was entirely innocent of any ill intent. What I'm saying is that parents horrified about their little child being taken away - even for 15 minutes- by a strange man aren't likely to be persuaded by his word that nothing happened.

It wasnt a sleeping child, the daughter was awake

The whole issue is that the mum doesn't know how it all came about, that's what she's been trying to find out

Presumably the man could explain but hasn't for reasons so far unknown to her

How did the nursery not notice he had the wrong child then? Do they not check at all?

Assuming he's just picked up a sleeping child who could look similar to his own, surely they would know that his GD wasn't asleep? Or it was the wrong sleeping child?

I saw this on TikTok and I couldn't believe how this lady had been fobbed off so many times.

Even in the most innocent of circumstances, this grandfather clearly isn't fit to be in charge of a grandchild if he can't even tell which child it is!

If you look at the Mums posts you'll see that there was actually a significant amount of interaction between the man and the staff

He didn't just walk in and walk out again with a child under his arm that no one noticed

The man who held the door does need to be had a word with, that's basic nursery practice to not do that

We live in a modern litigious age where he will have been advised not to make any contact..for the investigation not to be compromised and for his own safety

If you want to continue thinking that this was part of an intentional child abduction and 15 minute abuse plan then crack on. We're all allowed to have interests.

I was just trying to put myself in the shoes of the parent whose child went with the stranger. And meeting someone who came across as genuine and a bit incompetent and said to me "We went to look at the ducks in the pond for 5 mins because she was crying and usually likes that, then I put her in the car seat and we drove the 5 minutes home and then walked in the house and Doris freaked out saying who on earth do you have there, where's Sophie? So we jumped back in the car and drove straight back to the nursery. I'm so sorry". Might make me feel reassured that my daughter was fine.

But you do you.

I once almost handed a child over to the wrong person. All day long a child in my class (six or seven) talked about how excited he was that his grandmother was collecting him. He must have talked about it ten times.

Then at pick up, an older lady I don’t recognise comes to my classroom door. She says ‘hello, I’m here for Andrew’. I say ‘oh he’s so excited that you are collecting him and I call ‘Andrew’ and he came to the door. He goes right to her and then she says ‘this isn’t my Andrew’. She was collecting her own Andrew and she had come to the wrong door.

It was one of the biggest mistakes I’ve here made because obviously you aren’t supposed to just hand over a child to someone you have never seen before. I know that and I’ve followed the correct procedure dozens of times, none of which ever resulted in someone claiming they were supposed to collect a child when they weren’t.

I think I was affected by his excitement. I wanted him to be collected by his grandmother as soon as possible because he was so looking forward to it.

Because the intent wasn't there to abduct the child. It was a stupid mistake made by the grandfather and shockingly poor practice on the part of the nursery but no crime was committed. It should not just be left there but the appropriate bodies need to deal with it and that's not the police.

On the grounds that no abuser would ever lie, you mean?

It wouldn't do anything about the safeguarding issue and nursery failures. But a PP was making suggestions around the grandparent having nefarious motives and what happened during the 15 minutes he had the child and the nursery refusing to pass on contact details to the child's parents. If the grandad was harmless and inept, then a conversation with the child's parents may reassure them of this and fill in the blanks of what happened to their child during this time

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also be concerned about strangers does it?

If this is what happened then even if the grandad had picked up the right child, there would be no log of the right child having left, which would be an issue as well.
The nursery workers can't be "so preoccupied with one handover" that they don't notice or bother with the other person leaving with a child at the same time.

How would a meeting with the other child's grandparent set their minds at rest?

I hope all the staff involved has had a bollocking too and not just a father who held the door open.

The door should be supervised.

The nap room should be supervised.

No one should be able to take any child without interaction with a member of staff.

This is shocking and a safeguarding failure and the nursery needs to be taking steps to ensure it couldn't possible happen again.

The nursery staff were at fault in releasing the child to the other grandparent. The grandparent was also clearly at fault in taking the wrong child.

All of this can be acknowledged without suggesting that any harm came to the child or that this man abducted a child.

Safeguarding is about making sure no harm can be done and not about casting accusations that harm has been caused.

I do think that the nursery facilitating a conversation between the grandparent and the child's parents may be useful and may help to set the parents' minds at rest. I'm sure the parents of both children are shocked and incredulous that this could have happened.
The grandad is quite probably mortified. He may have poor eyesight, may struggle with face blindness and saw a right-sized child with right hair colouring and that's the extent of his learned recognition compensating. Or he may not have been paying attention. The staff should have known this was child A who is being picked up by Parent C and not child B who is being picked up by Grandparent D.

Also worth saying, I work in a nursery and we have a door that is weighted and snaps shut. If can be wedged into an open position and stays open if purposely set like this. It can't be any heavier or faster closing without being a safety risk. There is a little outdoor porch with a low gate and a bolt. The system is to open the bolt, enter the porch, close the bolt behind you, then ring to have the door opened. The parent walks in with child to an indoor hall where a low gate is opened to bring the child through, babies are often passed over it. This is designed so at all times the pathway is closed for a child. Even if they dash out the door they are contained within the porch on either side. Every day, and I mean every single day I see a parent leaving the porch gate hanging open after them as they ring the door bell. I see parents wedge the door open to get in with a buggy and leave it open. All staff are told to check on this constantly, we are closing these doors many many times a day. Staff in the rooms out front can see this area and often have to run out to close the gate or call a manager to do this if they can't leave the room. Parents have been told 1000 times how important it is to keep doors closed and still a few disregard such a basic safety procedure every time. It's terrifying how easy something could go wrong despite putting all the preventative measures in place.

Nobody should be able to walk into a nursery unnoticed and removed a child unchallenged.

If that’s what happened it’s not something to feel sorry for the nursery for, that’s something to be absolutely flabbergasted that they don’t have basic procedures to deal with.

Not allowing random people to walk in and remove a child is a basic fundamental for a nursery.