Gympie parents face court after children left home alone

The three Gympie region children were all under 10 when their parents left them unattended for hours – then a fire broke out.

A Gympie region couple were both placed on good behaviour bonds on Monday after they were convicted of leaving their three young children home alone for hours while the mother drove the father to work.

The couple, who can not be identified for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to the offence, which came to the attention of authorities after fire broke out at the property while the children were their unsupervised.

Gympie Magistrates Court was told the children were all under the age of 10, and had been alone since about 4pm on May 8.

Their parents had left them at home because they were tired and needed rest, the court heard.

Police prosecutor Melissa Campbell said at some point that afternoon, green waste on the property that had been burned the night before spontaneously reignited into a “large fire”, though duty solicitor Chris Anderson said it was not a large fire.

Police were notified at about 8pm by a member of the Queensland Rural Fire Service that there had been a fire on a property where three children were home alone.

The fireys waited with the children until police arrived at the scene. The children had been alone for six hours by the time police arrived, the court heard.

Sergeant Campbell told the court that one of the children tried to douse the fire with a bucket and said to the fireys that those were his father’s orders on the phone.

After being transported to the local police station, the children disclosed they were in frequent contact with their father throughout the evening, including when they were making themselves microwave meals.

The parents arrived at the police station about 11.40pm to pick their children up, where they declined to be interviewed, the court heard.

Having only one car at the time, their mother had been dropping off their father at work more than three hours away, and she was returning home to take care of the children, it heard.

Normally, she would have been home before 4pm, Mr Anderson said.

The mother received the call about the incident on her way home and quickly turned around to collect the father before rushing home again, he said.

The parents were placed on a behaviour bond of $600 each for 12 months. No convictions were recorded.