02/05/2008

Mother Finds Child Wandering Streets Outside Nursery

A mother arrived at a nursery to pick up her three-year-old son, only to find him wandering alone in a nearby street.

According to Clare Inman from Kippax, east Leeds, her son, Mackenzie, could have been missing from Kippax Ash Tree Primary School for up to 10 minutes.

The school has apologised and launched a review of the incident.

Ms Inman arrived at the building at around 3.30pm, only to see her son walking by himself, about 100 yards from the building.

She said: "I was really shocked to begin with, I actually looked at him twice. I thought, 'how has this happened?'"

Ms Inman believes Mackenzie had left the building at around 3.20pm while his teacher was busy with another parent.

The mother-of-three has now removed Mackenzie and his four-year-old brother Harry from the school.

"I've got no confidence whatsoever in them looking after my children now," she said.

A spokesman for Kippax Ash Tree Primary School said: "The safety of our children is of paramount importance and we are conducting a thorough investigation to discover how this happened.

"We have apologised to the child's parents and can assure everyone that we are urgently reviewing our systems with Education Leeds' health and safety team to ensure it does not happen again."

(NS/JM)

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