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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

kids left in car in car park/called Police

158 replies

Delilah21D00LoT · 24/08/2018 21:17

Just wondered if you would have called the police or 'turned a blind eye'.

Tuesday this took place:

12:55 DIY store car park two little boys (4 & 6 sitting in an unattended car when I came out of store.

So 15 mins later I went into store to ask for call out. Which they did to no result.

I Couldn't get through to Police on 101 but managed to get through on web chat.

13:25 blues and twos arrived.

13:40, Dad comes out of store and was very 'casual' tried to blame the kids by saying they didn't want to go into the shop 😡.

Police chaps also noticed that neither boys had car seats! To which the Dad went on about they usually use them, but due to his shift work he was too busy.

Police took my details and then I left them all to it and headed home.

Was I wrong to call the Police?

OP posts:
AmICrazyorWhat2 · 25/08/2018 00:40

@Grilledaubergine
People leaving kids home alone at 9. Yeah, that’s wrong, no excuses.

Laws differ depending on where you live, though. Where I am, children aged 8 and above can be left home alone or in a parked car.

Not saying it's always advisable, but that's the legal situation.

Rhiannon13 · 25/08/2018 00:47

FWIW cars can and do burst into flames. Mine did, a couple of minutes after I'd turned the engine off. It's obviously not common enough to be a huge concern though: I'd be more worried about the general safety of young kids who are possibly routinely neglected by their parents. Left on their own for too long, no car seats. What else is being left to chance?

GloGirl · 25/08/2018 00:48

Any child who is amazingly well behaved and responsible enough to be left alone in the car for over 15 minutes must easily be a breeze to take with you into the shop.

The only reason I'd like to leave my children in the car when I go shopping is because they're arseholes hell bent on getting themselves run over or begging me for sweets.

Which is exactly why I don't trust them in the car either not to release the handbrake, open the doors and come find me etc etc.

Small collisions in car parks are very common and I would think it cruel to leave young children where that has a chance of happening. I don't think it's likely, or dangerous but there's still a risk the car get a bumped or scratched and the kids won't know what to do and might be faced with a stranger wanting to sort it out.

Nanny0gg · 25/08/2018 00:53

They were hardly parked outside the corner shop.

It was presumably a large car park, and the father was out of sight and earshot for 45 minutes.

We are talking about two small children - KS1 and Nursery age. Hardly responsible ages!

And there is always the chance that their car could be hit by another.

It was stupid and lazy and the OP absolutely did the right thing. I hope he gets fined over the car seats and in some trouble for leaving them.

marants · 25/08/2018 00:57

OnlyFoolsnMothers I think it is!

garethsouthgatesmrs · 25/08/2018 00:58

When I was 9 my mum left me in the car outside our home while she went in to get something. I accidentally fiddled with and undid the handbreak and the car rolled into the front of next door's garden wall. Thankfully it was at a very low speed and caused a small amount of damage which my parents obviously paid for. Poor mum.

The point is that leaving children in a car means leaving them with access to all the controls. 5 mins outside a shop where you can see them is different to 45 mins completely out of sight. Its like the car is a free childminding service and one which.could potentially kill your child!!!

You did the right thing.

garethsouthgatesmrs · 25/08/2018 00:59

*handbrake

Sharkwithknees · 25/08/2018 01:08

You can't 'accidentally' fiddle with a handbrake. Come on Hmm You were an untrustworthy child. Kids differ. Mine's 8 and for years I'd trust her in the car alone if I'd had to. Thankfully never had to test that theory

Peachypeaches · 25/08/2018 01:16

A car burst into flames outside the school where I work, while the owner was dropping her children at school. The mum was so upset, as she said that if it had been raining heavily that day she probably would have left her toddler strapped in her car seat while she popped the older siblings in (tiny village school). The speed that the car became completely engulfed in flames was terrifying. After witnessing that I would never leave any child unattended in a car unless they are old enough to get themselves to safety in an emergency.

My son is 16 now, but when he was younger and we were thinking about leaving him at home alone for the first time I asked him a few questions just under the pretence of a general chitchat, just things like what would you do if the TV caught fire, or what would you do if someone walked into the house. His answers really surprised me as I thought he was sensible and ready to be left, but I was very wrong. His plan for if the TV caught fire was to get cups of water from the kitchen and throw them on it, and if a stranger came into the house his plan was to grab a knife and fight him!! I asked him similar questions 6 months later and he gave much more mature and sensible answers so that was the point that we felt ready to leave him.

RedneckStumpy · 25/08/2018 01:20

FWIW cars can and do burst into flames. Mine did, a couple of minutes after I'd turned the engine off. It's obviously not common enough to be a huge concern though

Whenever DH or I fill up with fuel, we open the bonnet and undertake basic maintenance and check stuff.

If you wedge something in the fuel pump handle you don’t have to stand there but it will still cut out. So use that time to perform basic maintenance

LassWiADelicateAir · 25/08/2018 01:30

You did the right thing.

I'm pretty horrified that most people on this thread feel that calling the police was the right thing to do just because a parent decided to leave their child in the car whilst they went into a shop

I'm pretty horrified by the posters who think it was perfectly fine. I know by MN standards I was pretty relaxed about the age I let my son play outdoors with friends/ go to the park/ up town with friends but 3 and 6 are far too young to be left on their own.

In the eighties, we were always left in the car or outside the pub/betting shop and we emerged unscathed

I was a child of the 60s and my son was a child of the 90s- not once was either him or me left in a car outside a pub or a betting shop.

Rebecca36 · 25/08/2018 02:50

You did the right thing, the kids were probably in the car, unattended, for an hour at least and that's not right. Though I hope they were alright of course. The dad won't do that again in a hurry.

treaclesoda · 25/08/2018 03:10

Any child who is amazingly well behaved and responsible enough to be left alone in the car for over 15 minutes must easily be a breeze to take with you into the shop.

My son is a nightmare in shops but as good as gold in the car. He knows the car is dangerous and he must not touch anything, and he doesn't.

Having said all that, I still wouldn't be leaving him for 15 mins on his own in it, unsupervised. But I have no concerns about leaving him in it for a minute or two whilst I buy milk or whatever.

Weepingangels · 25/08/2018 07:31

Yanbu. 5 or 10 minutes at six i wouldn't look at but 45 minuetes is ridiculous. 3 is far too young.

I wouldnt worry myself about spontaneous combustion but i have been stationary in a car park before and had someone reverse into me hard.

Tookawrongturnsomewhere · 25/08/2018 08:03

You did the right thing. My ex did the same as I found out later from kids plus other general lax stuff which was also going on when we were together. My issue with car park is that there's zero visibility and it's a longer time frame. The kids themselves would probably be fine. The car probably wouldn't explode. But it's lax and leaving too much to chance. And they always get away with it. At the least you would hope getting an earful from the police would make him think twice, as I bet he doesn't listen to anyone else.

RosiePosies · 25/08/2018 09:15

@ChasedByBees 🙄

BuggeringNora · 25/08/2018 11:09

@RedneckStumpy - is this in the UK? I can't imagine having something to hand that would be big or strong enough to keep the lever on a petrol pump depressed, what do you use?

Ddssdd · 25/08/2018 11:32

Do you not think you did the right thing?

I'm just unsure why you need validation. If you are questioning it, which bits of your decision are you questioning? 🤔

marants · 25/08/2018 11:34

Ddssdd I don’t think the op is questioning herself, I think she is wondering what other people think of her actions and what they would have done themselves.

QuackPorridgeBacon · 25/08/2018 11:50

Honestly, unless they looked in distress I probably would have walked on. I don’t drive though so wouldn’t be hanging around in a car park and observing, I’d be getting myself and my kids through it quickly and safely.

RedneckStumpy · 25/08/2018 12:07

BuggeringNora

I use the fuel cap of my car wedged inside the pump handle

LassWiADelicateAir · 25/08/2018 12:18

You can't 'accidentally' fiddle with a handbrake. Come on  You were an untrustworthy child. Kids differ. Mine's 8 and for years I'd trust her in the car alone if I'd had to. Thankfully never had to test that theory

And of course children always do what they are told and never do the things they are not told to do. What a daft post.

Bananasinpyjamas11 · 25/08/2018 13:00

@Tookawrongturnsomewhere I totally agree with you. It’s the general slackness which is somewhere on that grey line between good enough parenting and slight neglect. Why don’t we call it out? We’d report if a dog was in a car in the summer, but not two kids?

Reminds me so much of my Ex who was very slack around my son. He had the ‘free children from the awful chains of actual parenting’ lobby to back him up too. You know the posters on here ridiculing the OP.

The kids themselves would probably be fine. The car probably wouldn't explode. But it's lax and leaving too much to chance. And they always get away with it. At the least you would hope getting an earful from the police would make him think twice, as I bet he doesn't listen to anyone else.

It’s a red flag if nothing else. He might be a fantastic Dad but just does this one thing, which even though not the worst in the world, is still leaving kids too young to be left unattended. What if they had a fight, or decided to wander? Or it might be that he does other slack stuff too. And in this case, the red flag was right as he didn’t have car seats and was putting their lives at risk. The OP might well have kicked this Dad into a better more responsible way of parenting. She hasn’t condemned him to prison! A stern word from the police. Who see those rare but tragic incidents from leaving kids unattended far more than we do.

The OP did a positive thing. It isn’t sanctimonious or over the top. It’s community minded and caring.

Tanith · 25/08/2018 13:41

There's a problem near where I live with parents abandoning their kids in shops while they take themselves off to do a bit of child-free shopping in town.

The local shopkeepers are sick of it. The kids run riot, they're completely unsupervised and one shopkeeper got into a big argument with a father for making a child leave the shop after causing damage - the father apparently believed it was the shopkeeper's job to mind his child for free.

BuggeringNora · 25/08/2018 13:42

@RedneckStumpy - aah genius! Unfortunately my car doesn't have a cap - it just has an external flap, then you push the nozzle in to open the internal flap, (diesel). It's a great idea though, I'll have to think of something else I could use Grin