Simon Hunter
A WOMAN has been arrested by police in Madrid after leaving her four-year-old daughter home alone at night so that she could go to work. The child has since been placed into care, while the suspect is facing charges for child abuse and neglect.
The authorities were alerted to the incident in the Ciudad Lineal district by a neighbour, who could hear the little girl crying from her adjacent apartment. It was not the first night that the sobs had been heard through the wall, the woman said.
A National Police spokesperson told Spanish daily El Pais that officers first knocked at the door of the apartment, but no one responded. They then managed to make contact with the girl by speaking to her from the other side of the adjoining wall, and once they had identified themselves as police she let them in.
The officers found that she was alone in the apartment, which was in an unhygienic condition with ‘mould on the walls and rubbish on the floor’. The girl complained of being hungry, and officers reported there was no food to be found in the kitchen.
The suspect is a 27-year-old Colombian national with no residency papers, and who was working in a nightclub in the Villaverde district of the city.
She admitted to officers that it was not the first time that she had left her daughter alone while she worked her shift, which ran from 10pm to 4am.
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