Newborn Left In Car With Note As Mum Shops

A baby has been found alone in a locked car with a note attached to its blanket asking passers-by to call if there were any problems.

The newborn had been left in a car seat while the child's mother went shopping at a supermarket in Porirua on New Zealand's North Island.

A photo of the baby, and the hastily scrawled note which had a mobile phone number on it, has sparked outrage after it was printed in a newspaper and posted online.

According to The New Zealand Herald, a man who parked next to the car with the abandoned baby raised the alarm.

He told the paper: "It was written from the baby's perspective, and it said, 'my mum's in doing the shopping, call her if I need anything', and it had the cellphone number.

"We waited there for a little bit, wondering if the mum was just going to be two seconds and come back.

"And my wife said, 'I'm not going in without someone being here with the baby'."

The baby was spotted in the car park of Pak'nSave on Saturday morning.

According to the newspaper, another two passers-by waited by the car, with one of them phoning the mother and telling her to come outside.

Senior sergeant Justin Rakena said police could not investigate if there had been no complaint, and no-one had come forward to talk to police about it.

They had not spoken with the mother.

Police would "absolutely" investigate if a complaint was made, he told NZ Newswire.

It is illegal in New Zealand to leave a child under 14 years old alone for an unreasonable time or in unreasonable conditions.

Doing so could result in a fine of up to NZ\$2,000 (£1,000).