A Nelson Mandela Bay mother is facing a charge of culpable homicide after her six-month-old child died while locked in a hot car for several hours.
Police spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu said the 34-year-old woman from Despatch loaded the baby girl into her car at 6.45am last Thursday to drop off her three-year-old at school.
She, however, forgot to remove the infant from the car when she returned home.
About seven hours later, she went to a hairdresser where she spent about two hours.
She then picked up her son from day care and only then realised that the baby was still in the car.
The temperature that day reached a high of 26C.
Naidu said: “It is alleged that a Despatch mother of two minor children, a boy aged three and a six-month-old girl, put them into the back of her vehicle and drove to the older child’s day care centre and dropped him off before returning home with the infant.
“At about 1pm, the woman left for a local hairdresser and at about 3pm went to fetch the boy from his day care centre.
“It is further alleged that while she was putting the boy into his car seat at the back, she realised that the infant child was never taken out of the vehicle.
“The child was rushed to hospital but was declared dead.”
The police are investigating a case of culpable homicide.
HeraldLIVE
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