The Provincial Court of Almería has upheld the nine-month prison sentence given to a woman who left her two-year-old son alone in a locked car in a shopping centre car park for more than 40 minutes. The court said she put the child in “serious neglect” and “potential risk.”
The Second Section’s decision, which Europa Press reviewed, rejected the defense’s appeal, which said that “there was no intention whatsoever to abandon his son,” and fully upheld the sentence given in July by Criminal Court Number 1 of Almería for the crime of temporarily abandoning a minor. The verdict keeps the prison sentence and the restraining order that says he can’t get within 200 meters of the child for one year and nine months.
The occurrences happened on May 9th, 2025, when the accused left the child alone in his car seat in the car, parked in the Torrecárdenas shopping centre car park, with the doors closed and no one watching between 8:11 p.m. and 8:53 p.m.
The court stresses that a specific risk is not needed to prove the offence; it is enough that the behaviour is “ex ante dangerous” by putting the kid “outside the protective sphere of guardianship.”
The Court does not agree with the defense’s claims of “abandonment” or “loss of insight”. Instead, it finds that the abandonment is shown by the statements of the agents, the security workers, and the recordings of the car park.
A security guard told the police that the child was in the car, and many notifications were issued over the public address system, but they did not work. So, the National Police were called in, and they had to wait a long time for the woman who was accused to show up. The court also said that the woman was around other individuals who could have taken the youngster with them.
Author: Derek Appleton
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