Cape Town - A shopper called the police and laid a charge after she found a toddler child locked in a hot car while her guardian mother apparently went shopping.
Ivy Simpson, 64, says she does not know how long the little girl had been in the “baking hot” car at China Town, previously Shoprite Park, in Parow, on Saturday morning before she spotted her.
Simpson, from Parow West, says she pulled into the parking lot to find the child asleep, lying on her face, in the car with all the windows rolled up.
She immediately alerted security and the mall’s management, and also called the police as they tried to rouse the child.
“We go there regularly to do our shopping. As I was getting out of the car, my eye caught this child in the back of the white Toyota Tazz,” she explains.
“The girl, who cannot be more than two years old, was unresponsive when I knocked on the window. I feared the worst.”
The Toyota Tazz in which the toddler was found. Picture: Supplied
She says they shook the car and tried to wake the child, who finally opened her eyes an hour later.
“I was so relieved to see her move and then we spoke to her, showing her to lift the button on the door. She looked dazed and afraid, but she did not cry. That car was very hot.”
Meanwhile, the management had made an announcement over the intercom and Simpson says a young woman of about 20 arrived nearly two hours later.
“She was rude and disrespectful. She told me it’s not her child, it’s her brother’s child. The policeman took her aside and spoke to her, but he let her go, with her child. I went to the police station and the sergeant in charge said nobody had reported it.”
Simpson added that Parow police said they were investigating the incident.
Provincial police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk did not respond to queries on Thursday.