A woman from the Netherlands left her 6-month-old baby in her hotel room in Málaga and went to dine in a nearby restaurant.
She was using a mobile-phone app, however, to monitor the baby to see if it awoke crying.
However, another hotel guest reported the couple and the police arrested the woman and her partner. They were brought before a magistrate and a condenatory judgement was handed down.
However, a provincial, appeal court acquitted them, reasoning that whilst their behaviour was “morally reproachable” it did not qualify as “temporary abandonment.”
The incident took place on the 22nd of October, 2022. The couple were staying in room 219 at Hotel H10 (Moneo).
A guest at the same hotel said that he saw the couple in the cafeteria with the baby playing on the floor. Soon after the mother went up to her room and returned by herself, holding her mobile phone. The other guest claimed that he could hear a baby’s cry coming from the device. He then saw the parents leave the hotel accompanied by an older couple.
His first reaction was to inform the receptionist, who took no action, he claimed, therefore fearing that the baby could come to harm, he phoned the police at 20.16h, who sent several officers to investigate.
The police went up to the room and found a ‘door not disturb’ tag hanging from the door handle. At first they could not hear any sounds coming from the room but when they knocked they could hear a baby crying.
The officers asked the receptionist to open the door and upon entering found the baby standing up in the cot. On the table was a mobile phone facing up. Consequently, they asked the receptionist for the couples file containing a contact number.
They phoned and the woman answered directly so they asked her where they were and she replied that she was in Restaurante Los Mellizos del Soho. The officer told them to return to the hotel immediately, which they did within minutes, accompanied by the grandparents.
The grandparents assured the police that they could look after the baby as the parents were under arrest and were to accompany the officers to the police station. According to the officers the mother attitude was chulesca (cocky.)
They were booked and released pending an appearance before a magistrate, which concluded in a 12-month suspended sentence. During the trial they claimed that the baby hadn’t reached being able to crawl so they knew that it couldn’t get out of the cot. They further claimed that even monitoring the baby using the app, they did not hear the baby crying once. The woman also claimed that in the Netherlands this kind of remote monitoring is “very normal.”
The judge was not convinced and pointed out that they had left the child unattended for over two hours.
The couple lodged an appeal and the judge accepted the defence’s argument that had been an error in the evaluation of proof and therefore his clients rights had been violated and there was ausencia de dolo. (wilful default).
(News/Noticias: City & Metropolitan Area, Malaga, Andalucia)