Woman charged with leaving child in car - Katoomba Police have charged a woman after she allegedly left her three-year-old unattended in a vehicle to go shopping at Katoomba early this week. Just before 6pm (Monday 13 January 2014) police were called to an underground car park near a shopping complex on Parke Street. They located the girl, seated in a baby capsule in the back seat of the vehicle, with the windows closed and car locked. The child didn’t respond to police knocking on the window and calling out so they smashed the rear window of the Subaru to gain access. Police were still trying to wake the child and cool her down when her mother arrived. The three-year-old was taken by ambulance to Blue Mountains ANZAC District Hospital and released later that night. The 29-year-old mother from Katoomba was charged with leave child/young person unattended in motor vehicle causing harm or emotional distress. She was issued with a field court attendance notice (FCAN) to appear in at Katoomba Local Court on Monday 3 March 2014. Police would like to remind motorists, especially during this current hot weather, that it is against the law to leave a child locked in a car unattended and that they can be fined up to $22,000 under the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act. Last year, 19 people were charged for causing distress or injury after leaving a child in a vehicle. Facts about vehicle on hot days: * On a hot day the temperature inside a parked car can rise to 30-40 degrees above the outside temperature - if it’s a 30 degree day, the temperature inside a car can exceed 70 degrees Celsius * These high temperatures inside a closed vehicle can be reached within as few as 5 minutes. The temperature can peak within as few as 15 minutes. * The temperature inside a closed vehicle rises when the airflow decreases, making breathing inside the vehicle very difficult * Having the window down slightly will only cause a small drop in temperature inside the car - there is no safe way to leave a child in an unattended vehicle * The temperature inside a closed vehicle will be slightly higher if the car is dark in colour and if the car has large amounts of glass.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 03:45:02 +0000
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