childminder left 27 kids alone.

[KassandraOfSparta]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr9dzljq56ejo

Licenced for 8, had 27 in the house. "At the time of her arrest she had 15 children aged under 12, 10 children under primary school age, and two children under the age of one in her care." Reported by parents who had spotted the woman doing the school run but without the kids she was being paid to look after. Wee ones left locked in the house, strapped in prams.

Very bland statement from the Care Commission promising lessons would be learned.

Police should also be trying to recoup the money this criminal woman has earned from her business. Poor kids.

It does seem like an odd story. Surely at least some of the school age children are telling their parents how many children she’s looking after, or that the young ones were crying when they got home?

It was the charges of leaving 20+ children home alone and unsupervised that didn’t originally make sense as the 12 being collected from school couldn’t be included in that as she was with them and there was 15 in the house. But it was 20+ over multiple occasions.

Were you one of her clients @HFMMM ?

Utterly mental. Why did the parents who later reported their children coming home with dirty nappies/dry faeces/thirsty keep returning them to her care? How did the school not notice the number of kids she was collecting? How did she hide it all when prospective parents went to view?

Surely the older children mentioned the house stuffed full of babies to their parents ?
Even by age 4 my children would have been able to tell me what was going on!

I have every sympathy for the parents but it's very hard to believe their weren't a lot of warning signs

Yes I was.

As for why parents didn't notice, I expect that like many abusers she was charming, had a good manner and either had reasonable explanations for any concerns or got questioning parents off her books quickly. I don't imagine the chaos was obvious. Plus she was ofsted registered and very experienced and established locally.

I don't think it's helpful to ask how it's possible parents didn't notice. There are thousands of examples of abusers getting away with abusing many children over decades that seem obvious in hindsight. Abusers can be clever and convincing.

Thank you for this. Honestly people don’t know the half of it. Only a tiny amount of information is in the news articles about this. The judgment on parents on this thread is horrible, these parents have been through enough and are traumatised.

I suspect this happens more than we'd like to think. When my niece and nephew were little they went to a childminder who used to leave the little ones at home with her teenage son when she did the school run. My SiL and BiL had no idea until they went to collect early one day and saw it for themselves. The childminder was furious and basically tried to blackmail them not to tell Ofsted (which they did in the end, not sure what action was taken).

Why didn't you know what was happening?

Then why not explain more

people’s replies are going on the news article

I get if you didn’t go in (and my friend doesn’t really where her dd goes to a cm) as easier to bring the child then get rid of the parent

but she at 4 will say I played with abc today or the toddler C cried lots as teething /sad

my 9yr loves babies /toddlers and wouid play with them happily but if asked would say how many there were etc

Abusers are very good at keeping children quiet. It’s how they get away with it. that’s why I mentioned hoping the local authority are making sure parents of the children can access therapy for them.

I agree. Decades ago a relative of mine came to an informal arrangement with a friend they'd met because they had babies of a similar age (bad idea, as they realised very quickly, because the boundaries were blurred). The friend had two pre-schoolers and was willing to mind my relative's little one on the days the mother was back at work (part-time). One day when they picked up little one the friend said something about going to the supermarket earlier. My relative said 'Really, with three children in tow! That was brave' and the friend said blithely 'Oh no, they were all asleep in the car, so I just left them there.' Seeing my relative's face she then started gabbling about how she'd been in and out in two minutes but the damage was done. My relative found a proper childminder asap.

This is a dreadful story. Thank goodness none of the children had an accident, as could easily have happened.

Because it’s no one else’s business. This isn’t gossip. The in depth details are not allowed to be reported on because it involves child protection. It’s not hard to understand why the details haven’t been released surely. No one from our community owes strangers on the internet an explanation. You don’t need to get it or understand how this happened. Of course you can make a judgement on only knowing a small part of the picture but there are children and parents who will have to live with the trauma of this forever… be a bit more considerate.

people’s replies are going on the news article

exactly this. If you don’t know the people involved then you can only judge on what you read. Obviously parents are upset and traumatised by what has happened, even if their own children are unscathed. And no parent should be pressured to reveal information which might identify themselves or their children.

But you don’t then go in a thread saying you don’t know the half of it, while not giving any info.

I was a CM for 30 years, in England not Scotland. I always knew when Ofsted were coming, we were given the date a few days ahead.
I knew of a CM who then would get all toys and creative things her own children had done when younger out of a box and put out as if it was the Childminding childrens work.
She was a bloody menace and was reported by other CM's more than once. The reports were put down as malicious by Ofsted.
Finally she was asked why two of her charges were always asleep on the school run, as they were about 4 and a bit old to be having a nap and in a buggy. Her reply was it was the antihistimine they had to take that nade them sleepy.
The woman who asked knew their mother and asked her later why they were taking antihistime. The mother knew nothing about it. She called the police, the CM was arrested and charged with Child Endangerment. She got a Commuinity Order after pleading her usual Good Ofsted and Mental Health. It never came out that we had been reporting her for years.

I also really hope that all children and parents are being supported if they need it, and getting assistance to claim back any money they paid her.

Well you can and I have… like I’ve already said we don’t owe any of you any information just because you want to gossip about it. You won’t be getting any of the details from me. Why do you think you are owed that? This is children that have been abused it’s not mindless gossip! Have a heart.

Yes there are some awful childminders (yes, I am a childminder..) who get away with all sorts.
years ago my own children attended the local school which had 3 separate entrances for the pre-school, infants and juniors.
i saw a local cm collect 4 from the preschool, and walk them back to hers.
Same day 15 min later I saw her collect from infants & juniors (without the preschoolers) and then she sat them on the wall outside the local shop and left them while she went in. She had way over the allowed number of under 8's and had left the preschoolers with her husband who was not an assistant.

Yes I reported her.

How did the children's parents not notice anything more like?

We had a childminder who started taking too many children - so we immediately stopped using them. Not hard to show a bit of common sense when sourcing child care.

That newspaper story makes chilling reading, even to someone not involved.

My granddaughters go to a childminder - one before and after school, the younger is not yet at nursery. Parents drop off and collect from the doorstep. Not all the children go every day. Often they go to activities or days out with other CMs so it wouldn't be obvious, at first glance, how many children she had in her care. Of course, 27 is very different to 8 and it's difficult to understand how she got away with it, but the parents were not deliberately choosing to endanger their DC.

That’s what I thought. But then thought don’t blame the parents. Maybe she insisted on just shoving kids out the door?

Of course the parents weren’t choosing to endanger their kids, she was ripping them off and taking too many kids out of greed.

Because I didn’t. My kids were so young. They were obviously scared into telling us what was happening and everything was cleverly hid from everyone.