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In this 7 December 1999, file photo, attorney Michael Carey, left, and his client Annette Sorensen leave New York's U.S. District court after the second day of trial of her $20 million lawsuit against the city AP

Danish mother says she's still stung by 1997 arrest for leaving baby outside New York restaurant

The incident sparked an international debate about parenting styles.

A DANISH MOTHER whose 1997 arrest for leaving her baby outside a New York eatery sparked an international debate about parenting styles says she still feels she was unjustly vilified.

“(My) case that happened 20 years ago is even more relevant today,” Annette Sorensen told the New York Post. She said American parents “live in fear,” and she still wants “to show it’s possible to live another way.”

Then an actress in her 30s, Sorensen parked her 14-month-old daughter in a stroller outside a barbecue restaurant in Manhattan’s East Village neighbourhood while she and the baby’s father, a New York-based playwright, had margaritas inside on a chilly May evening.

Sorensen said she repeatedly checked on the blanket-covered baby during the hour they were at the restaurant before a patron summoned police.

The parents were arrested on child-endangerment charges that were eventually dropped. Child welfare authorities briefly took charge of the girl.

“I don’t think there’s any greater punishment than to have your child taken away from you,” Sorensen told the Post.

The episode sparked outrage from New York, where residents were astounded at the idea of parents depositing a child alone on a sidewalk, to Denmark, where residents were equally stunned by the notion of being arrested for leaving a child unattended for a spell while shopping or dining.

Sorensen filed a $20 million false-arrest lawsuit against the city. A jury in 1999 awarded her $66,000, rejecting many of her claims but agreeing that she should not have been strip-searched, among other findings.

Sorensen, who now lives in Hamburg, Germany, is trying to raise money online to get an English translation of a novel she wrote based on her 1997 experience.

“I always had a big longing for an apology,” she says in a fundraising video that also features her now 21-year-old daughter. “I probably never will get this apology.”

The novel is being translated by Irish woman Sinéad Quirke Køngerskov.

Read: 8 modern parenting worries my own mum never had to deal with

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    Mute Liam Ryan
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:34 AM

    I think it’s the child that deserves an apology

    1104
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    Mute Gillian Weir Scully
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:14 AM

    @Liam Ryan: And money.

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    Mute Boyne Sharky
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    Dec 30th 2017, 1:15 PM

    @Liam Ryan: Isn’t it strange that we hold Scandinavian countries in such high esteem, they are among the happiest, the healthiest etc. But when we see some of their cultural practices we immediately balk at them and assume we’re right and they must be wrong, why, if they’ve been doing this for such a long time with no ill effects?
    It’s commonplace in Scandinavian countries to see prams and buggies lining the streets, the children inside wrapped up against the cold, if I remember there was an article on this on The Journal some time ago.

    https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/08/12/gp-parenting3_wide-f35ebf4027069a823aa635d8e69d2814cb9f1e49.jpg?s=1400

    https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2016/12/BabiesBelowZero3.jpg

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    Mute Dave O Keeffe
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    Dec 30th 2017, 1:26 PM

    @Boyne Sharky: maybe Scandinavia and New York are entirely different and shouldn’t be given the same amount of trust?

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    Mute Michael Hayden
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    Dec 30th 2017, 1:52 PM

    @Boyne Sharky: I’ve no problem leaving the child outside wrapped up like they do in Sweden it suppose to be good for them as long as well wrapped up. My issue is the fact that this woman felt that outside a new York City eatery was a suitable place to leave her daughter for an hour. And for the father he’s just as bad

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    Mute Boyne Sharky
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:04 PM

    @Dave O Keeffe: Fair point. I assume child abduction is unheard of in Scandinavia but a very real possibility in New York, which could have been easily pointed out.
    This illustrates the cultural differences between the two countries but not any malicious intent. This sounds like an urban myth but I knew someone who was in America in the early 80′s, he was a typical vivacious Irishman in a bar one night who kept mentioning “the craic”. Yes, it was the start of the crack epidemic and they thought he was looking for drugs, he was arrested.
    I’m sure there are multiple times cultural differences between countries may cause issues, an innocent thumbs up gesture in many countries is considered very offensive but, again, there would be no malicious intent.

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    Mute Boyne Sharky
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:11 PM

    @Michael Hayden: So, if I understand you correctly, you feel leaving children wrapped up outside can be beneficial, as it is in Sweden – but not if it’s outside a New York eatery, and the father should know better than the mother? Wow.

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    Mute Michael Hayden
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:47 PM

    @Boyne Sharky: how many people do you reckon live in new York City. Let’s look at examples of kids left on their own and she what happens. There’s fecking nut jobs out there and leaving your child unattended so you could go have drinks is a bit like the mccains. Even if the child was on the other side of the glass window how long would it take to get to them if something happens.

    Leaving a child unattended on a street in new York City is bad patenting

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    Mute Dave O Keeffe
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    Dec 30th 2017, 9:35 PM

    @Boyne Sharky: he said the father was just as bad not that the father should have known better than the mother. Big difference

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    Mute Hugh Courtney
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:40 AM

    What type of clown leaves a baby outside a restaurant and thinks it’s fine!

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    Mute Seeking Truth
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:46 AM

    @Hugh Courtney: It is the done thing in Denmark. Seems a very strange idea.

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    Mute Charles McCarthy
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:55 AM

    @Seeking Truth: unfortunately not all cultural idiosyncrasies travel well to other countries. Some people forget that, just ask all the foreigners in jail’s throughout the world.

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    Mute Hardly Normal
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:30 AM

    @Hugh Courtney: I’ve heard stories from my nan , lots of people used leave their kids outside Roches stores in Cork , just parked up left there in their prams while they went off and did a bit of shopping. They came back and collected them , no hassle. This was in the 50′s and 60′s. I’ve also heard stories about women mixing up prams and taking the wrong child home, I’ve no idea if they’re tall tales or not!

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    Mute Hardly Normal
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:31 AM

    @Hardly Normal: It could be the Viking thing :-P

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    Mute Deborah Behan
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    Dec 30th 2017, 12:16 PM

    @Hardly Normal: I remember kids being left outside of shops when I was a kid in the early80s but it wasn’t New York!

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    Mute Hardly Normal
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    Dec 30th 2017, 12:24 PM

    @Deborah Behan: Fair enough! I wasn’t and I’m still not defending her , just commenting. Were you allowed smoke in New York restaurants in 97? Maybe leaving the kid outside was in fact healthier.

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    Mute Michael Hayden
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    Dec 30th 2017, 1:54 PM

    @Hardly Normal: I reckon if there was smoking in the restaurant it would still be safer than leaving the child on the footpath of one of the busiest cities in the world

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    Mute Hardly Normal
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:04 PM

    @Michael Hayden: ya but what if they gave the baby a margarita? What then?

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    Mute Michael Hayden
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:49 PM

    @Hardly Normal: again still better than leaving the child on the footpath

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    Mute Ian Walsh
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    Dec 30th 2017, 4:17 PM

    @Seeking Truth: It was and still is the done thing here in Ireland! It may not be as popular as it once was but it still happens and I don’t see anything wrong with it.

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    Mute filthypete
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:34 AM

    Women writes book about event 20 years ago. Might get translated. Great story.

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    Mute Nicola Moran
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:19 PM

    @filthypete: a slow news day obviously, the journalistic laziness and typos on The Journal is too much – deleting app now.

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    Mute Mr. H
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    Dec 30th 2017, 5:30 PM

    @Nicola Moran: yup this is now one of the worst news apps. Constant spelling mistakes, poor writing and school-boy gramatical errors

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    Mute Polly Dolan
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:59 AM

    When we were kids in Ireland people left sleeping kids in prams outside shops, pubs, cafes etc… it was the norm

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:46 AM

    @Polly Dolan: Always. Out in the fresh air, and it was good for us. Donna mentioned tenements, and several children developed bone problems from being indoors all day. I know a man who grew up in Glasgow and he remembers the municipal playgrounds being closed on Sundays. Growing children were meant to be inside all day, reading a Bible back then. No realisation of the impact of radon, or rickets.

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    Mute Deborah Behan
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    Dec 30th 2017, 12:18 PM

    @Fiona Fitzgerald: but it wasnt New York!!!

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    Mute Matt Rogers
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    Dec 30th 2017, 6:07 PM

    @Deborah Behan:
    By 1997 NY was safer than Glasgow

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    Mute Joe King
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:38 AM

    What was the point of this article. Is the journal trying to remove responsibility from parents to even look after their baby, as is the great liberal tradition of nobody being responsible for anything. Bravo.

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    Mute MK76
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:44 AM

    @Joe King: Oh the irony of your post is just delicious.

    You accuse the Journal for trying to take away personal responsibility, while ignoring the reader’s responsibility to be able to read an article without being unduly influenced.

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    Mute meltyface
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:02 AM

    @Joe King: Her body her choice!

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    Mute Ted Murray
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:02 AM

    If it hasn’t sunk in after twenty years, it never will. Her daughter’s probably planning some kind of revenge, and in another twenty or thirty years there will probably be a story about some woman leaving her decrepit wheelchair bound mother outside a pub for three hours in the snow.

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    Mute Gillian Weir Scully
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:23 AM

    @Ted Murray: Love it.

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    Mute Honeybadger197
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:40 AM

    Apparently lots of Scandinavian parents leave their well wrapped up babies outside citing improved health. http://time.com/4968712/parenting-advice-scandinavian/

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    Mute Donna
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:48 AM

    @Honeybadger197: and actually when the tenements were around in uk and ireland there was a such thing as a cage that hooked onto the window ledge outside so you could put your baby in to get fresh air!!

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    Mute Gillian Weir Scully
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:22 AM

    @Honeybadger197: Very glad my grandparents had cosy home with central heating. Lots of running around and well wrapped up for exercise and health which I called fun outside.

    Dog froze to death in America. Cats and other animals being killed in England. A woman who still thinks it was okay to leave a child outside while she was inside AND awarded money.

    Here is to kindness and thoughtfulness in 2018.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:53 AM

    @Gillian Weir Scully: Surely she could see her through the window. My parents didn’t drink but I wonder how different the controlling blaming remarks would be had the article said they were in a café. I wonder if it was a bar designed along Victorian lines, with stained-glass windows to protect passers-by from the sight of men indulging in drink? New Yorkers are a bit frantic. I once visited my aunt over there and she was what any Irish parent would call overprotective to say the least.

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    Mute Gillian Weir Scully
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    Dec 30th 2017, 12:42 PM

    @Fiona Fitzgerald: No not that. If a child stops breathing how quickly can you get to them. Or you take your eyes of your child how quickly can someone else take them.

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    Mute EillieEs
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:13 PM

    @Gillian Weir Scully: it was commonplace to see babies in prams outside houses, shops, libraries, etc when I was growing up in Dublin. Perhaps these parents were able to see the child through the window from where they were sitting?

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    Mute Greased Up Deaf Guy
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:06 AM

    Should only be done in extreme circumstances, like when your accumulator is coming good and the buggy won’t fit in the door of the bookies!

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    Mute Paul Flood
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:05 AM

    Trying to make money from a book now has removed any doubt about the type of person she is. That notwithstanding the fact that she left the child outside a bar to go for drinks speaks volumes.

    And it was wrong that she got compensation; the authorities were acting in the best interest of the child.

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    Mute Alan Roddy
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:15 AM

    @Paul Flood: strip searching the mother was in the best interests of the child?

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    Mute Paul Flood
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:36 AM

    @Alan Roddy: looking for drugs I presume. So, yes.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:54 AM

    @Paul Flood: What on earth do you have against an author earning their own income?

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    Mute Christine Paulette Roche
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    Dec 30th 2017, 10:49 AM

    This one is something else, the Gaul of her,can’t believe that she even got 66,000 in compensation for putting her child at serious risk whilst drinking cocktails in a bar ( shocking)

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    Mute John Considine
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:03 AM

    @Christine Paulette Roche: Asterix the Gaul?

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    Mute mr magoo
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:30 AM

    @John Considine: haha! People just can’t spell anymore.

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    Mute Danny G
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:38 AM

    Two English doctors left 3 children home alone sleeping, a lot further away, a lot later at night too and no charges ever brought against them for neglect!

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    Mute Brian Lilly
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:16 PM

    @Danny G: Two well educated and affluent parents. If they were working class, I’d suggest they would have been charged.

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    Mute Danny G
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    Dec 30th 2017, 4:11 PM

    @Brian Lilly: 100% agree Brian.

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    Mute Eamonn Martin
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:00 AM

    Did this numerous times in London having lunch with kid just the other side of a window. Nobody thought this was strange and let the kid sleep outside in the air. I guess depends on the circumstances.

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    Mute Henry Fingleton
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:03 AM

    @Eamonn Martin: it is strange Eamonn, very strange. I’ve seen dogs tethered outside SuperValu for 10 minutes, never seen a kid. Shame on you

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    Mute Alan Roddy
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:18 AM

    @Henry Fingleton: actually, I wouldn’t have a problem if the child was literally on the other side of the window. Is it not better for the child to be outside in the fresh air rather than in a crowded restaurant? If the child is safe, and a parent is so close that there is only a pane of glass between them, I don’t see a problem

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    Mute Henry Fingleton
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:21 AM

    @Alan Roddy: no Alan its better for the kid to be sat at the table having a snack or a drink as opposed to being made stand outside in the one spot for at least 30 minutes

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    Mute Gillian Weir Scully
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:28 AM

    @Eamonn Martin: Jamie Bolger. Madeline. The baby that stopped breathing in Killiney shopping centre.

    A child playing with a gas hob causing an apartment block to go on fire.

    Scaring myself now.

    How fast can you get to a child that needs you if you have a door between you?

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    Mute Gillian Weir Scully
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:32 AM

    @Eamonn Martin: I think they said on the English news today that there are about 20,000 male paedo in England that they can do nothing about.

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    Mute Eamonn Martin
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:18 PM

    @Alan Roddy: exactly. A sleeping child in a cot a foot away should not be an issue.

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    Mute Eamonn Martin
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:23 PM

    @Henry Fingleton: comparing someone letting their child sleep in fresh air rather than wake them and bring them into a noisy restaurant with tethering a dog outside SuperValu is just ridiculous! As I said in my original post. Need to consider circumstances. If I believed there was as any risk to the child I would not have done it!

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    Mute Noel Lacey
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:38 AM

    My two year old sleeps outside every day at his Creche Rain hail snow or shine, covered in his buggy snug as a bug. Yes it’s Denmark and coming from Ireland it took a little time come round to it. Now we happily leave our sleeping child in his buggy outside if we want to grab lunch or a cup of coffee. Of course it’s a cultural thing. Here in Denmark our child is safe, I would not dream of leaving him outside on O Connell St in Dublin or Patrick st in Cork for that matter.

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    Mute Bortoli
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    Dec 30th 2017, 1:46 PM

    @Noel Lacey: I wonder if baby snatchers reading this will now plan trips to Denmark.

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    Mute marg fitzgerald
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    Dec 30th 2017, 4:07 PM

    @Noel Lacey: How is the child safe? It only takes one pervert or one lunatic to attack, harm ,take, and or even kill the child. The cultural norm would make no difference then.

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    Mute Noel Lacey
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    Dec 30th 2017, 5:33 PM

    @marg fitzgerald: I said outside, not out of sight! Usually parked up alongside a multitude of other prams, strollers, buggies.. They also let children climb trees & run in the school yard. The lady in the article I assume just thought it was the same as at home, that wAs her mistake.

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    Mute Frank Dowling
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:05 AM

    It was the norm to leave kids unattended years ago… the Jamie Bolger case changed all that.

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    Mute Ted Murray
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:14 AM

    @Frank Dowling: ___ Babies in prams, babies in maternity hospitals, and kids in general, were getting taken long before the Bulger case.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Dec 30th 2017, 12:01 PM

    @Ted Murray: I suppose it depends on the country. In China they were abandoning them because they were told that one child was their limit. And in other places, kidnapping them. I remember reading a very old case of a couple who adopted several children in the States and bumped them off in turn for the insurance money. Extremes always make the headlines.

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    Mute Brian O Reilly
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:28 AM

    I was living in New York at the time ,everyday you picked up a carton of milk you would be confronted with a new picture of a missing child,The native New Yorkers where horrified at her actions and so was I,d say she was just naive ,but will get the book ,so she succeeded in getting a sale.

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    Mute Alphonsa
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    Dec 30th 2017, 12:11 PM

    “Darling, we took the wrong baby home from outside the pub last night.”) ” Don’t worry honey, it’s a better buggy”

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    Mute María Eugenia Baiardi
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    Dec 30th 2017, 12:50 PM

    It’s the done thing in Scandinavia. Creche leave rows of prams outside so kids enjoy a bit of fresh air. Not a big deal.
    I think we are a generation of overprotective parents.

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    Mute Dave McCrea
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    Dec 30th 2017, 6:48 PM

    @María Eugenia Baiardi: First, Manhattan in 1997 is not some fjord in Denmark. Secondly the incident was back then so it’s a different generation. Thirdly when you’re in a foreign country you adapt to their customs and laws…..

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    Mute Cindy Crawford
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:47 PM

    Maddy McCann was allegedly kidnapped from a holiday apartment while her parents were downstairs having a meal. Chances shouldn’t be taken.

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    Mute Mary Walshe
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    Dec 30th 2017, 2:44 PM

    When my eldest was a baby and we lived in the city, i used to leave him in his pram outside shops, with the dog tied to it. Same going for lunch on a Sun, we’d park outside the restaurant, check on him periodically and if he cried we brought him in.
    He’s 34 years old now, and a dad himself, and none the worse for any of it.
    I do realise of course that times are different now but i still dont feel that kids are in any more danger than they were back then, but that we have become much more afraid, of everything!

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    Mute Dave time
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    Dec 30th 2017, 12:06 PM

    I wonder would people feel differently if the child was shown to be in full view next to the window and inside the Restraunt every second person was smoking.

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    Mute Bortoli
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    Dec 30th 2017, 1:50 PM

    @Dave time: no I’d say they’d just feel like saying make yourself a cocktail at home you have a baby now grow up and take some responsibility. And people comparing this to creches leaving rows of peaks outside is completely different as they’re supervised and not in a bar where anything can happen between them getting out to a pram.

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    Mute Bortoli
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    Dec 30th 2017, 1:52 PM

    @Bortoli: rows of prams not peaks!

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    Mute gerry fallon
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    Dec 30th 2017, 9:22 PM

    Have to be honest.It WAS wrong to leave the baby outside.What if the child was taken?
    Or a car mounted the footpath and killed the child.She WAS reckless full stop.
    66 k.?

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    Mute Dave McCrea
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    Dec 30th 2017, 6:47 PM

    wow… she leaves her kid outside to have margaritas for an hour (!), then gets $66k in damages – now she’s writing a book about her experience (who wants to read this) and isn’t going to pay a translator herself, she’s got a gofundme going for it??? what an entitled narcissist

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    Mute Pat Conners
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    Dec 31st 2017, 4:45 AM

    Personally i dont agree with it..but as an Irishman living in Belgium i see alot of things that would be normally alien to Irish people traditional and so on..but madeline mc cann was left in an apartment by her parents and it ended wrong. My kids would always be next to me especially in new York even if it is the wealthy side. New york london Paris ballymun makes no difference.

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    Mute Observer
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    Dec 30th 2017, 11:06 PM

    The good old USA. .stupid then..still stupid

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