Calling the police to check on a crying baby

[summermumma2021]

Just had to call the police to check on a new neighbours baby. What would
you have done in this situation?
New neighbours live down our road around 100m away from us and could hear loud very distressed crying for over half an hour.

It sounded like a newborn or young baby crying and so I assumed they’d settle or some attempt to comfort them would be made but the crying stayed at the same level for ther period time. I could also hear raised voices and car doors slamming and I asked my husband if he’d heard it too (he was downstairs) and he said yeah he was worried as well.

Anyway in hoping it was nothing and the little one is fine but it just didn’t sit right and it sounded like no attempt to comfort them was being made at all.

i have no idea who the new neighbours are as it’s quite far from our bit of the road but for it to be that loud from this distance didn’t seem right. I have also had three colicky babies so I do know babies can cry for periods of time but as I said it sounded like no attempt to help them was being made.

Anyway police treating it as a priority case and checking things out. Just wanted to share really as worried.

So did the police go ?

OP did you find out anymore from the police if the baby was okay?

Thats probably true but that’s ok… she’s not being tested on her knowledge of what 100 metres is. A lot of people are shit at assessing distances and height etc that’s why distances are often judged in car lengths or in the case of this thread swimming pool lengths. It’s not really the point of the OP.

So you think in this situation the parents feelings are the primary concern?

I find it impossible to believe that anyone who had gone through the hell that is a sick baby crying would call the police on another mother after a mere 30 minutes.

Yes OP or husband could have checked all the noise was from one house. OP could have gone round in the morning with a Hi, I know you are new here, my children are a bit older and would you like to know about baby groups. If the latest generation cant do that then they are sick.

I think in this situation you need to weigh everything up and not have a dramatic overreaction to some random noises you heard way down the road and are putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 22 at the expense of many other people, yes. At least check out some details first for god’s sake, that would at least be reasonable and proportionate… something often unfamiliar on mumsnet

But the OP was concerned for the child's welfare at that time. Maybe it was not required but Sue was concerned.

She's hardly going to lie awake all night concerned and worrying then pop around to strangers she's heard arguing in the street late at night to tell them about baby groups? 🙄

Who are the “ great many people” and what is the expense you’re talking about. No one is being thrown into jail unless a crime has been committed. What you’re discussing is some inconvenience- that’s all that’s at stake here. The police would rather go 99 times and find nothing if it means the 100th time they rescue a child / other from a bad situation.

I don't think they will feedback to the OP on something sensitive like this. I've made two child welfare calls to the police over the years and never been updated. For one I know they definitely attended, as I kept the baby in my eye line until they did (they took less than 5 minutes).

That said, I did once report erratic driving (where a car mounted the curb at speed and nearly hit two schoolgirls) and got a call back to say thank you and that the driver was known to the police for alcohol related issues. So maybe it's down to the assigned officer.

Had she have walked down the road she’d have confirmed it was one incident. She’s admitted the baby lives in a row of 4 terraced houses and she doesn’t know any of the residents. Just because there was a baby crying at the same time as other people shouting and someone else slamming a car door doesn’t mean it was all coming from the same house, and OP can’t be sure of that, especially when people live in close proximity of each other.

Oh Jesus you’re one of them, so this will be my last reply to you .. I didn’t say “ a great many people” so stop with the hyperbole. The “many” people that it could affect could potentially include the police who are pulled with limited resources, the people in genuine need of the police who have to wait because they are checking out a baby crying in a heatwave which many babies normally do, the parents who may suffer emotionally from this, the neighbours who may be woken up by the police … I could probably think of others as I have consideration for other people but you’ve either absorbed the point by now, or not. And no, the police would not rather go 100 times than not, trust me, I worked for the police for many years and this sort of unnecessary overreaction is very frustrating. A little fact checking first would be the sensible approach.

That's if the baby was ok after 8 hours.

I accept that the OP may have heard something particularly concerning but objectively a baby crying for 30 minutes (she wouldn't know if they were being comforted at that distance), raised voices (didn't say screaming or distress from adults) and car door slamming, objectively really does not seem like a good reason to call the police. There was no reason to think this was domestic violence and these were neighbour's so no good reason to think it would be unsafe to knock on the door and check all was well either. And if she didn't want to knock on the door she could have at least walked nearer to check tge eaused voices and crying were from the same house.

Every single person who has the slightest inkling that a child could be in danger has a duty to report it. Then we might not have so many horror stories like that of little baby Preston or poor toddler Isabelle Walsh who was sexually abused and murdered by her parents.

Another 2 year old girl was found raped and murdered in a house in Chertsey on Thursday just gone. Who gives a shiny shit about potentially - and briefly - offending a struggling parent when it could mean saving a helpless child from horrendous abuse and death?

It's easy to see from these responses why so many poor little children slip through the cracks of our "society".

But if you over dramatise every situation then you create another monster in society too where everyone expects the worst of each other and our already stretched resources are stretched to breaking point. The children you mention were shockingly let down and very tragic, but they are also thankfully the minority and we don’t need to jump to conclusions about anything else. Yes we should be more aware but we also need to be balanced. The circumstances mentioned here are very vague and all heard from a distance. I don’t think anyone here is saying if you have genuine cause to have concern for a child that it should not be reported- obviously it should!! However, some fact checking first would be a sensible approach. And some noises heard from 100m away that you cannot be sure all come from the same house do not justify a 999 call. Of course the police will dispatch. If somebody mentions a concern for welfare of a child they are duty bound to check it out. That doesn’t mean they thought it was necessary. If OP had taken a walk past to establish what noises were what and coming from where then I would be backing her all the way. However she didn’t. She made assumptions and speculated… from a distance!!!

The police were notified by medical stafff on that case though. Regardless, there might actually be more horror stories if police are so busy doing welfare checks on babies crying for half an hour that they don't have time to check where there is real concern.

OP actually had no real reason to believe the baby was in danger. A baby was crying for just 30 minutes - babies cry, it's the only way they can communicate. 8 hours later it might be crying again, it's what babies do. If every baby was reported when they had a long cry the police would do nothing else but visit crying babies.

Im one of them ? Yeah I’m one of them. Former police officer. Former child abuse investigator. Former Crime academy trainer. Yeah. I’m one of them. Have a great day

Somehow I doubt the truth of that from the wording of your posts … another hyperbole from you I suspect … but yes, have a great day sunshine

Who would have to wait?

I think that as a parent and a mother you can sometimes just have a gut feeling that something isn’t right - and then you should act on it. If police dispatched it may even have been based on other calls they’ve had re. that address.
I’m lucky to live in a nice area with little visible crime, but every time the local crime stats are posted on our road WhatsApp domestic abuse calls and arrests is always the nicest figure - it’s really shocking.

Calling that poster a liar is uncalled for.

I didn’t call them a liar - I said I personally doubted the truth from their wording. Which I do. Whether they are a liar or not, only they will know. But I am allowed to doubt their words if I am unconvinced by them. Calm down.

You’re a right charmer.