Sydney mum recounts 'panic' at discovering day care wrongly gave son to another person

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A Sydney mother has spoken publicly for the first time after her son was accidentally handed to the wrong person by their childcare centre. The one-year-old was returned unharmed after several hours, but the mother has told the ABC the incident has deeply affected her family.

Transcript

00:00It took place in early September at a First Steps Learning Academy Centre in Bangor which

00:07is in Sydney South. Sophie Tilly is the mother. Her one-year-old son was accidentally handed

00:13to the grandfather of another infant that attended the centre. The man didn't notice

00:18the mix-up, he took the child home. Sophie has described the moment her and her partner

00:22arrived at the centre just after five. Their older child was there but the younger one

00:27wasn't and she was told he had been picked up hours earlier.

00:33It was then said that he was collected by an elder man in shorts. We were then asked

00:40to contact my father-in-law, which my partner did, called his father, said have you picked

00:46up our youngest, which he said no. We then found out that he was picked up at 3.30, so

00:54nearly two hours prior to us arriving he was taken out of the centre. As a parent that's

01:01I think everyone's worst nightmare, not knowing where he was, who he was with.

01:06So how long did it take to find Sophie's son?

01:09Well she said her child was missing for over two hours. The educators at the centre actually

01:14had to trawl through CCTV to try and work out who had taken the child home. When the grandfather

01:20was notified he immediately raced back to the centre and Sophie does believe it was a genuine

01:25mistake but she's opened up to us about that period of time where she had no idea where her toddler was.

01:32I was a mess. I couldn't speak. I couldn't function. My partner thankfully is very calm. He kept it

01:38together really well. He was questioning the educator that handed them across, asking questions.

01:43And of course my eldest saw me getting so upset. He saw me getting, you know, he was worried for me

01:51then so I had to really rein it in and, you know, be the parent and be strong and kind of put my

01:58emotions to the side. Like I don't know how I did it but I kind of had to for my eldest because he was

02:04then very upset and very aware that his brother wasn't there. You know, he was going around the centre.

02:09My brother's missing. My brother's gone. Like where, where is, where is he? And like we had to say,

02:15look, oh he's just playing hide and seek. And well, Sophie has told us the past two months have been

02:20a really challenging time for her personally and for her family. She said she couldn't sleep for

02:25several weeks after the incident. She still gets very uncomfortable every time her boys leave her side.

02:31She's been calling the child care regulator, which is the Department of Education, weekly to try and find

02:36out if any disciplinary action will be taken against the child care provider. But the investigation

02:41is still ongoing. It's now stretching into its ninth week. The provider has told us that it's

02:46overhauled its pickup procedures and offered professional development to its staff. Amy, thank you.

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