Mother admits to leaving child in freezing car outside a bar in Lethbridge

On a cold December night in 2016, a good Samaritan heard a child crying from a locked, turned off vehicle outside a local bar. The temperature was minus 18 – they called the police.

Those details were outlined in an Agreed Statement of Facts read to the court after a 32-year-old mother pleaded guilty.

The woman can’t be named to protect the identity of her son.  She was charged, along with another woman who also left her daughter in the vehicle, for failing to provide the necessaries of life.

Police arrived and broke the window, removing a three-year-old girl.

Police located the mother in Studio 54, a local bar, drinking with another woman and determined they had been there for about an hour. She admitted she had forgotten about her child.

As police continued to search the vehicle, they discover a second child. A four-year-old boy curled up under a pile of jackets, not crying or speaking, just shivering.

Both children were assessed and had no physical injuries, but the court heard they did show signs of hypothermia and were at risk of injury or death if they hadn’t been discovered.

The mother of the young girl pleaded guilty last month and was given a conditional discharge, with one year of probation.

There is no jail time or criminal record if she stays out of trouble for at least a year.

The 32-year-old mother of the boy originally pleaded not guilty, but on Friday changed her plea and will be sentenced in June after a pre-sentence report is complete.