Father prosecuted after leaving daughter in car for ten minutes

(I´m putting this here because I think it is relevant)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11249091/Father-prosecuted-after-leaving-daughter-in-car-for-ten-minutes.html


Tim Haines tells of nightmare battle to clear his name after leaving toddler alone for 10 minutes while he dashed to nearby pharmacy


A father has told how his decision to leave his two-year-old daughter alone in the car for 10 minutes while he nipped to a nearby shop to buy Calpol almost led to his children being taken into care.


Tim Haines, a family law advocate, was arrested and prosecuted for “wilful exposure of a child to risk of significant harm” and faced a year-long battle to stop his five children being taken into care.


“We won, but we came within a hair’s breadth of losing our children,” said his wife Julie, 50, a teacher.


Their ordeal began in 2004 when Mr Haines parked on Evesham High Street in Worcestershire and dashed into a pharmacy close by, leaving his daughter Iset in the car.


When he returned less than 10 minutes later, Iset was happily standing up on the driver’s seat, but two policeman were waiting by the car to confront him.

Mr Haines, 50, told The Sunday Times: “They gave me all sorts of grief about leaving my daughter alone in the car, said I had bald tyres and refused to let me drive it, so I walked home with Iset in my arms.

“I thought that was the end of it, but a few weeks later there was a knock at the door and there were two policemen there to arrest me.”

The Haines’s children were placed on the child protection register and the couple spent a “nightmare year” fighting to clear Mr Haines’s name and keep their children.

They succeeded in getting his conviction overturned on appeal and in the summer of 2005 – almost a year after the incident – their children’s names were finally removed from the child protection register.

Mrs Haines said: “I was sick with anxiety the entire time the children’s names were on the register.

“Social services sent us five care plans for each of our kids. I ripped them up and pushed them back under the social services office door.

“We wrote our own plans and submitted them to the family courts. They weren’t used to dealing with articulate middle-class people.”

Four out of five of the couple’s children were cathedral choristers, while two are now at university and three remain at school.

The family decided to speak out following the case of a mother in the West Midlands who was given a caution for leaving her six-year-old son home alone for 45 minutes.

Currently the law states only that parents should not leave children alone if they will be placed at risk.

The government is facing pressure to pass legislation that will make clear at what age and for how long children can be left unattended.

maybe it's me but how much trouble would it have been to carry a two year old into the store?

I have to agree with you Marky and also this:

When he returned less than 10 minutes later, Iset was happily standing up on the driver’s seat, but two policeman were waiting by the car to confront him.

However, what concerns me is the different treatment given to different people. Sadly, I think it does need to legislated.

I just think it's a wee bit (only a wee bit!) odd that there are all these stories coming out round about now..... this has been the umpteenth one in past few weeks. I'd almost think we were being softened up for something.

Iris wrote:I just think it's a wee bit (only a wee bit!) odd that there are all these stories coming out round about now..... this has been the umpteenth one in past few weeks.  I'd almost think we were being softened up for something.

and you might be almost right.

But "We've all done it" don't you know!

Well, not me personally, but around the time Madeleine disappeared there were high profile people all over the newspapers saying how they had left sleeping children alone in cars whilst they quickly popped into a shop, blah blah.  

Well I can remember being left in a car whilst my parents went to the shops - because I was old enough, around 10 years old and I was refusing to go in the shops with them because it was boring.  I had my younger sister aged 8 with me. We played eye spy until our parents came back.

But younger toddlers and babies should not be left.  If you have to go shopping, do it when the little ones are not with you.  

This man was buying Calpol. Calpol is not used in emergencies.  For emergencies you would rush the child to A&E.  Therefore, in a non-emergency situation he could have asked his wife to pick some up on her travels, or waited until someone else was at the house to watch the little one, or take her into the shop as she was wide awake.  In fact if she was standing up behind the steering wheel it sounds like she was fine and not in any urgent need of medication.

Plus, if he had bald tyres, that is risky too. Put your own life at risk if you want to but don't take children out with you if you have bald tyres.

But articulate middle class professionals do have a shortage of one thing - and that's common sense.

I agree with you all but I fail to understand just why the Mccanns were treated as saintly beings, (still are for that matter) for leaving their children alone night after night, and in a strange country too.

ah, the media. they work in mysterious ways.

mara thon wrote:I agree with you all but I fail to understand just why the Mccanns were treated as saintly beings, (still are for that matter) for leaving their children alone night after night, and in a strange country too.

This is what baffles me as well. This man left a child for 10 minutes (not saying this is okay by the way), while the McCanns left their children alone for 30 or more minutes (9:30 - 10 pm if you believe Oldfield actually entered the apartment). How can Kate be an ambassador for missing children when it was her neglect (or worse) which led to her own child going missing?

jinvta wrote:

mara thon wrote:I agree with you all but I fail to understand just why the Mccanns were treated as saintly beings, (still are for that matter) for leaving their children alone night after night, and in a strange country too.

This is what baffles me as well. This man left a child for 10 minutes (not saying this is okay by the way), while the McCanns left their children alone for 30 or more minutes (9:30 - 10 pm if you believe Oldfield actually entered the apartment). How can Kate be an ambassador for missing children when it was her neglect (or worse) which led to her own child going missing?

worth considering that their education and professions played a part here. nod nod.