Would you report a 12 year old unattended on a train?

[GloGirl]

If you saw two 12 year olds on a train without a grown up would you report it?

"Any adults who saw two 12-year-olds getting off a train on their own should have questioned that."

YABU - call the police!
YANBU - no, I wouldn't

BBC News - Missing Balloch schoolgirls spent night locked inside train
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-56476935

Really weird story.

I've just looked at a pic of one of the girls, it looks like she has some piercings? People would think she was older.

I read one of the mums is on Facebook saying online trolls are daring to question her parenting skills.

I can't see any piercings apart from ears maybe I'm looking at a different picture !

viviennemary

Ah truth telling trolls.

Slapping her about the coupon with the wet kipper of reality.

It happens when you go seeking your 15 minutes on the back of acting like a hole.

The other parents got this right I feel.

No, I don't think 12 is too young to go on a train alone, especially as there were two of them.

I don't think I'd be able to be that precise about their ages, either - I'd generally think of them as young teenagers.

We don't know how the girls approached the person on the turnstiles, of course, but if they did so in a way that was sensibly asking for help I'd have expected the station staff to contact their parents. That's really what the mum should be questioning, rather than blaming other passengers.

@Mrsjayy

I can't see any piercings apart from ears maybe I'm looking at a different picture !

The link in the OP. Clearly shows a nose ring.

@Cyberworrier

Even at 10 or 11pm in lockdown?! Maybe I’m out of touch!

My employer had to hire private security to move kids their age on from our stations that late at night.

Trains are less busy than usual. Therefore they are less likely to even be in the same carriage as another person at that time of night.

I saw that and thought exactly the same.
I know it’s fairly normal in London etc

@sashh

The other girl's family is very quiet, I bet she is grounded and hearing, "I told you not to hang around with Amy"

If it was late I may have been concerned, in daylight I wouldn’t have thought twice. But I can sort of understand the mother lashing out, I would be so upset with my dd if she pulled a stunt like this.

I hear it as *I told you not to hang around with That Amy"

They’ll be getting interviewed by Oprah next. Withe their recollection of their truth.

Not at all. perfectly old enough!

She looks 12/13, my daughter had her nose piercing at same age

I got the train at 12 alone.

The train driver probably did walk down the train to check it and they probably hid. No one is looking below each seat - you walk along the aisle checking for sleeping customers.

I am glad it turned out well, but this is no one's fault.
The girls wanted to do it - so they did. Sometimes pre-teens do naughty things.

As if they 'fell asleep' whilst pratting about, out late after they should have been home, on a train that didn't actually take them home, without a mobile phone to call anyone...

They hid, then the novelty wore off and they were bored and cold and hungry, and then realised the bollocking they'd get so 'oh we fell asleep'...

Bollocks did not just one but two 12yos fall asleep that earlier in the evening - with each other to keep themselves awake.

I suspect the proper walk through wasn’t done, simply because it’s the most logical explanation. They could have hidden I suppose - but not checking properly seems more likely.

I feel for the mother - I don’t care if her parenting is bad or not (and I’m not assuming it is) - as she’d have been terrified.

I only judge her for not keeping her mouth shut now.

Two kids who were up to mischief (kindly) or very bad behaviour (less kindly) - who have no-one but themselves to blame for this.

Mine would be getting some discipline and a half today.

I judge the mother for trying to pass the blame to random passengers and train crew.

That is shameful.

Kids do silly things but someone could be getting their arse handed to them this morning because of the actions of their kid who was ‘just doing something silly.’

Not on.

I’m not hearing her screeching to pay for the ticket either.

It has been suggested elsewhere that the train was cleaned on arrival at Helensburgh. It's not impossible to hide in a place where you're out of reach of the vacuum cleaners but you'd really have to be trying hard to do it. You certainly wouldn't be missed if you were just asleep on the seats or in one of the toilets. Something about the story doesn't add up, there must be more to it than we're aware.

The Daily Record has more detail - including that a friend told them that the girls had taken the train to Glasgow. Obviously I’m going off no details here, but I’m a bit surprised that a trawl of Glasgow central’s CCTV did catch them going back through for the Dumbarton train, leading to a search of that train at Helensburgh well before the following morning.

Another article says the police thought the girls would be staying over with another friend. Which may be the case that most missing 12yo’s turn up and are not abducted - but I’m putting 2+2 together to make 5 that this rule breaking, lockdown breaking, fare dodging pair perhaps had form.

I travelled on the train to school with a friend, or alone from the age of 9, as well as travelling to see relatives 4 hours away on the train from about 11. Different times, I know, but at 12? Plenty of 12 year olds use the train all the time. And no, I don't believe for a moment they fell asleep! Both of them? At a time when they were doing something they shouldn't be? Rubbish.

I'm with @sashh
The other girl's family is very quiet, I bet she is grounded and hearing, "I told you not to hang around with Amy"
The little devils.
This could have ended in tragedy, but thank goodness they were found safe and well.
If I had pulled a stunt like this I would have been in so much trouble, but now its everyone else's fault but the child's.

12 is old enough. My son started making a two hour train journey once a fortnight when he was 12 and he was fine. Yes I worried the first few times but once I realised that murderers and kidnappers just weren’t all that interested in him then I was fine. It gave him a feeling of independence and he’s actually far more independent than my husband’s two who have to be ferried everywhere 😫 Only once in 6 years was there a problem with the train and he did exactly what we’d discussed which was listen to the instructions from the guard and all was fine.

It must be hard having a country and western singer as a mother.

hard to believe that they both fell asleep