Boy, 3, walks half-a-mile home along "busy road" after wandering out of nursery without staff noticing
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A three-year-old boy left his nursery class and walked half-a-mile to home along a "really busy road" without staff noticing.
Liam Radcliffe burst into tears on his doorstep in front of his shocked mum Sarra Reid after he wandered through two sets of doors and an unlocked gate before making his way home.
Thinking there would be a panic, Sarra rushed Liam back to the nursery - only to discover staff had not realised that the tot had gone missing.
Bosses say security measures have been improved following the incident last Thursday at Barassie early years nursery in Ayrshire, the Daily Record reports.
(Image: Daily Record)
Appalled Sarra said: “It is about half-a-mile, or a 10-minute walk. It is a really busy road.
“There are buses, lorries and I don’t really want to think what could have happened.
“Liam has actually just turned three. What if I had been out?
“I heard a noise at my front door and it was my little boy crying his eyes out.
“He only had a pair of joggies and a T-shirt on. There was no teacher with him and he told me he wanted to come home.
“I grabbed my phone but there were no messages left for me.
“I put him in the car and drove back to nursery. We were buzzed back in and the teachers just looked perplexed as to how we were walking in together.
“I had expected to see a search going on for him. But when I walked in with him, the staff just looked perplexed. It was then that it dawned on me that they did not know he was missing. I was absolutely horrified.”
(Image: Daily Record)
Bank worker Sarra, 31, said staff told her that they’d had a head count and, at that point, Liam had been playing with a colander on his head.
She said: “Shortly after that, things seem to have gone wrong, because Liam must have been missing for up to 20 minutes and no one seemed to notice.”
It is believed Liam walked out of the nursery through two sets of doors and an unlocked gate.
He would have walked down Burnfoot Avenue before taking a right to walk west on Walker Avenue, before turning on to North Shore Road where he lives.
The incident happened last Thursday and Sarra had a meeting with nursery chiefs yesterday.
She was told that, from now on, the main door of the building will be alarmed and the gate will be padlocked.
(Image: Daily Record)
Sarra added: “They also said there would be an additional member of staff when I said that I thought they were understaffed.”
She added: “Thank goodness Liam knew the way home.
“He now knows when he is at nursery that he is not to leave on any account and that if he wants to come home, he has to tell the lady.
"I’m glad the nursery have changed their security measures but Liam will be finishing up there soon and hopefully starting at a new nursery.
“I’ve just lost confidence with the experience there, even though it is very local to us.”
Douglas Hutchison, South Ayrshire Council's director of educational services, confirmed additional security measures had been put in place.
He added: “We take our children’s safety very seriously and the new way of working will help ensure that such an incident doesn’t happen again.”