Locking up toddlers not criminal offence
Back in their allegedly negligent father's care, the two toddlers who were found hungry and dehydrated in a locked room at a rundown drug house.
Child Services was deemed unsuitable by Moffatview SAPS to care for two children under the age of five, who were found by Moffatview police officers locked up in a dilapidated house in Linmeyer.
The two children were discovered to have been locked up by their unemployed father. The Moffatview police officials are not certain whether the Malawian national is in the country illegally or if he has relevant South African legal documentation.
“The father of the children was not charged and was released (from Moffatview police custody),” confirmed Moffatview SAPS Communications Officer Constable Bila.
She added that when the father of the children was told by officers that the children were in the care of child services, he refused to have them kept there.
“He was told that the two kids would be put in child care, but he refused and said that he would take them and go stay with his brother,” explained Constable Bila. “The children are back in the fathers care, and are living with their father at his brother’s place in New Redruth (Alberton).”
When asked about the mother of the two children, Constable Bila said that according to their father, the mother is also a Malawian national who went back to Malawi when the youngest child was only six months old, leaving them with their father. Reasons as to why the mother left her children are unknown.
The uncle, who has taken in the man and children, according to Constable Bila, is employed and has committed himself to taking care of his relatives.
