It gives me the cold shivers to remember that, back in the '70's, my husband (as was) and I took our daughter, aged about 7, to a holiday camp in this country.
We were happy to leave her alone in the chalet in the evening, and relied on the camp's "Listening Service" to let us know if there were any problems.
Our daughter understood the set up, and I don't remember her minding -she knew where we were.
BUT anyone could have broken into the chalet, gagged and abducted her in a matter of moments.
Thank God nothing went wrong!
I'm now much wiser. (Hindsight!)
As a child in the 70s, if we went away to a hotel, my parents would leave my sister and I in bed in the room and go down to the bar for a nightcap. Not even use of a listening service, AFAIK.
Contrary to the comments which infer otherwise, there is no minimum age at which a child can be left on their own in English law, and it is not – in and of itself – a crime to do such a thing. As is not uncommon with such legislation, it allows for some pragmatism on the issue - and is based on circumstance, rather than the specific factor of age. It is probably inevitable that, not being as clear cut as is often claimed, the law is easy to misunderstand or misrepresent (a situation probably not helped by the leeway allowed in acknowledging individual judgement as a valid tool).
From
UK.Gov:
The law on leaving your child on their own
The law does not say an age when you can leave a child on their own, but it’s an offence to leave a child alone if it places them at risk.
Use your judgement on how mature your child is before you decide to leave them alone, for example at home or in a car.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) says:
children under 12 are rarely mature enough to be left alone for a long period of time
children under 16 should not be left alone overnight
babies, toddlers and very young children should never be left alone
Parents can be prosecuted if they leave a child unsupervised ‘in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health’.
(Worth bearing in mind that the second section is advice from an interested party, not legal statute.)
In regard to not leaving ‘a child alone if it places them at risk’: It is almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which an unattended child in any circumstances – even those which strictly apply the above advice – is entirely free from risk, and therefore the issue is really one of degree: it’s not really about whether a parent takes a risk, but whether they take an unreasonable risk.
And, to emphasise – as far as the law is concerned, being ‘alone’ is not the primary issue. I suspect – knowing a little about the relationship between law and language – that this is at least partly because it is difficult to define in a general sense at precisely what point a child becomes ‘alone’, and that it is more straightforward to make any judgement on the external risks involved than the state itself. (I’m talking about the law in general - not the particulars of the McCann case.)
It strikes me that there is an inbuilt contradiction to some of the criticism of such acts here:
a)
Children are extremely rarely abducted from a place of residence, therefore the parents in such cases must be viewed as suspects.
b)
Parents who leave their children unattended in a place of residence are grossly negligent, because of the risk of child abduction.
Despite not being particularly compatible, statements like these often come as a package – sometimes within the same paragraph; sometimes, virtually the same sentence. To be fair, the 'risk' element of the legislation clearly does not refer solely to human intervention, but that seems to be how it is often interpreted – certainly in cases where human intervention actually has taken place.
Some might argue that exposing a child to even a miniscule level of risk is unreasonable, but I doubt that these people, or any parent alive for that matter, could use this as the universal datum for bringing up a child - most parents will expose their children on a regular basis to levels of risk which are statistically far higher than that of being abducted; that’s not a judgement on any parent, it’s simply the statement of a fact of life.