Child dies after being locked in car

A boy of five died after being forgotten inside a locked car for hours when his surgeon father was called away for an emergency operation.

Police said the child had stayed in the parked car for at least nine hours, in outside temperatures of up to 32C.

The boy died on Tuesday in the town of Larnaca, outside the private clinic where his father works.

The 40-year-old surgeon set out to drive the boy to school but was sidetracked by an emergency call and spent the day in surgery. He remembered the boy after his wife called to ask where the child was.

An autopsy ruled out heatstroke or suffocation as the cause of death, but found the boy had a heart defect.

No one has been charged.