Toddlers wandered 200m away from crèche

A crèche told parents and gardaí that two toddlers had gone missing for three or four minutes and were found outside the front door when, in fact, the children were missing for more than 20 minutes and were found by a stream almost 200m away.

Crèche staff also thought just one child was missing and only realised the second had gone when the pair were discovered together.

The court was shown CCTV footage from the Giraffe Crèche at Belarmine, Stepaside, Co Dublin. It showed the children, a boy and girl aged 18 and 19 months, leaving a playground through an open gate even though three care workers were supervising the area.

Garda Mandy Lowe gave evidence that the toddlers then made their way across a second playground, through another gate, and down nine steps.

“They would have crossed an extremely dangerous bend on the road as well,” said Gda Lowe. After that, they would have gone around the back of an apartment block and through a park to the stream.

The woman who found them called gardaí and told the full story of what happened after the crèche had given its version.

Crèche deputy manager Joanna Witkowska, aged 34, of Wingfield Apartments, Stepaside, is charged with willful neglect of the two children arising out of the incident on July 23 last year.

The incident occurred two months after the same crèche featured in an RTÉ Prime Time investigation into care failures at three crèches in Dublin and Wicklow.

Giraffe is being prosecuted separately by the Child and Family Agency arising from welfare breaches filmed by RTÉ. Those matters will be heard in February.

Dún Laoghaire District Court heard yesterday that on July 23, 2013, the crèche was visited by an animal handler with sheep, rabbits, and other animals.

In her statement to gardaí, the animal handler said she asked for the code to the outer gate while she brought animals in and out, but Ms Witkowska told her instead to put something against it to keep it open.

The court heard the internal gate between the two playgrounds was also open during the visit. The CCTV footage showed Ms Witkowska running through the first playground to the gates when told a child was missing.

It also showed that staff only noted the little boy’s absence after 15 minutes when they started moving children indoors for their 11.30am snack and nap. Other footage referred to revealed that only the boy was looked for, as it was not known that the little girl was also missing.

Solicitor Dara Robinson, representing Ms Witkowska, argued that while what happened constituted “oversight, carelessness and negligence”, it did not amount to willful neglect.

Judge Hugh O’Donnell said he needed time to consider the evidence and adjourned the matter until Friday.