Childminder left children in locked car

A childminder from Staffordshire who left two children locked in a sweltering hot car after she was arrested for shoplifting has been jailed.

Ofsted-registered Anna Harries kept quiet about the children, a one-year-old boy and a girl aged two, while she was questioned, taken to a police station and put in a cell. It was more than four hours later that police were scrambled to find them on a supermarket car park in Stafford.

Officers located her Vauxhall Vectra on the Co-Op car park at Wildwood, the windows so steamed up with condensation it was impossible to see inside.

The police put a hole in one of the windows to let the hot air out. Paramedics re-hydrated the children and took them to hospital, Stafford Crown Court heard.

Harries, aged 51, of Deavall Way, Cannock who admitted two charges of child neglect and one of theft was jailed for a year.

Judge Simon Tonking also banned her from working with children indefinitely.

Mr Paul Farrow, prosecuting, told the court that Harries was arrested at the Co-Op around 1.40pm on May 2 after stealing £13 worth of fruit and meat.

The custody sergeant spoke to her husband and was told she was suffering from depression. The husband asked where the two children were. When asked by police, Anna Harries said they were at her sister's.

Police were scrambled to search for the Vectra and it was located at 5pm.