kids left in car in car park/called Police

[Delilah21D00LoT]

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?

There's also this apparently hard-to-grasp concept that children of similar ages develop at different rates and live in varieties of circumstances. I'll leave my 10 and 8yos alone in the house for short periods because they are sensible, get on well, and have easily accessible neighbours in case of any difficulty. If I lived far from anywhere and had impulsive kids who fought like cat and dog them obviously my risk calculations would be different!!

You did a store call out first and he didn't respond. You did the most sensible and safest thing.

I think you were being unreasonable to take action after just 15 minutes, assuming the children showed no sign of being distressed. I would have left my sensible older child alone for a while at 4-6. This isn't the same level of danger as leaving a baby alone in a hot car. It seems like an overreaction to me.

Yes, 45 minutes is rather long to leave young kids alone, not because they were likely to come to any serious harm but just because they might well get bored and get up to mischief, fight etc. But it depends on the kids.

However, when you first intervened, you didn't know the kids were going to be left for 45 minutes plus. If I saw young kids alone in the car, I would assume they were only going to be alone for a short while and walk on by.

YANBU. Dad was very in the wrong. Well done for doing the right thing.

Would say not unreasonable to leave kids of their age in car for a few minutes but definitely not that length of time. What on earth took father so long. YWNBU. Did the right thing.

For those saying parked cars don't burst into flames, they do I've seen it happen. Car on fire in our clos. Belonged to the son of a neighbour. He had parked up to visit her, 10 mins later the whole thing was in flames. It turned out it was a fault with the electrics in the car. It wasn't an old banger either. He said there was no indication when he parked that anything was wrong.

For those that were asking: both boys were in the back seat, the youngest had his window down and was crying, the eldest kept opening and closing his door and telling his brother to be quiet.

Thank you everyone for your replies and stories.

I have no regrets and really was just curious at what other people thought and would have done themselves.

Thanks again

100% in the right - it makes a change from "I really don't think I should get involved."

You're a star!