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

[Peterrabbity]

I saw on @jodyriley_ ‘s Instagram account last night that her 1 year old daughter was incorrectly collected by the grandfather of another child recently. The man seems to have had the child in his care for over 15 minutes before returning to the nursery.

From what I can gather, the nursery have been incredibly shady in what they’ve told the Mum and as more information has been slowly released, it seems that despite the nursery initially saying the child was asleep when collected, CCTV has proved that she was awake and alert. The nursery have also refused to pass on the names or contact details of the person who picked up the child.

I cannot believe how awfully the nursery have handled this. If I were the parent of a child in that nursery, there’s no way I’d be staying there considering how lax their safeguarding seems to be.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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

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!

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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’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.

—The grandad isn’t an old man like you imagine aww poor man so frail picked up the wrong child , he is a middle aged man who is fully aware. -The mum took the little girl to the dr to be examined but the little girl was in too much distress -The mum has pleaded on multiple occasions for this family to come forward just to get their side and reassurance that it was a mistake, she has received no response on any occasion, if there was a genuine mix up, you would do everything to reassure the mum.

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.

And if he did get in touch and said "nothing happened, I just brought her back"

Would you believe him?

PP said GF walked into the sleeping room and took the child. I've not read anything the mum has posted

Even more strange the child was awake and nursery staff allowed this to happen. How were they not present and supervising the room?

Sorry not aimed at poster I quoted but more to explain why I thought GF took a sleeping child.

The parents need to be asking the nursery for a copy of their investigation and getting legal advice.

Do you have a link to the CCTV? I didn't think it had been shared with anyone

It’s been reported on but cctv of children in a nursery setting is hardly going to be made public for anyone to view.

I started to take the wrong baby home from nursery once. She was 2 weeks younger than DD, hair the same and faces pretty similar.

I didn’t know the Mum before, we had the same buggy and some of the same clothes. I think they were wearing the same clothes that day. I’d got as far as putting her into the car seat before realising, think member of staff realised at the same time. Not my finest parenting moment it must be said.

You really expect the police to arrest the nursery staff when in my family they have taken no further action against

Sexual assault
Theft of a motor vehicle
Theft of a phone
Hit and run

Dream land.

For the record this grandfather was known to the nursery and completely vetted. If he took the child by subterfuge then fine, cast aspersions but this child was given to him. He had no choice, maybe he thought "this doesn't look like my granddaughter" but doubted himself.

I saw my husband in the shopping center the other week. Went over and started telling him about the queues in M&S and it wasn't blooming him!

Yeah I actually can't blame him for not getting in touch. I don't know if he has but if he got legal advice they would probably tell him not to get in touch with the family either. I can totally see why he doesn't want to risk appearing on tik tok and spending the rest of his life trying to convince people he didn't do anything wrong.

Of course YANBU. why do you even need to go onto Mumsnet and ask such a dumb question?