A woman was accused of negligence towards children in New Zealand after a 2-year-old girl was found in a suitcase in a bus luggage compartment on Sunday, police announced.
The bus driver discovered during a planned stop in Kaiwaka, in a city in the Northland region, the inspector of the detective of the New Zealand police, Simon Harrison, in a press release.
The suspect asked to access the compartment during the judgment, said Harrison, interim crime director for the adjacent district of Weekland of Weetematā.
“The driver worried when he noticed that the bag was moving,” he said. “When the driver opened the suitcase, he discovered the two -year -old girl.”
The toddler was taken to the hospital for an “in-depth medical assessment” and was “reported as very hot, but otherwise appeared physically unscathed,” said Harrison.
The suspect, a 27-year-old woman whose name has not been released, has been arrested and accused of “mistreatment / negligence” of a child, he said. Other charges are not excluded, he added.
She must have the court on Monday, said Harrison.
It is not clear why the toddler was in a suitcase. Entrada Travel Group, which operates the national bus line of New Zealand, Interurcity, acknowledged that the incident involved one of its buses.
The bus line indicates online that children up to 2 years travel for free if they do it on the lap of a tutor. Children 3 and over can travel with tutors, but this requires a child’s note, generally sold at a deeply reduced rate.
“We are aware of an incident involving a passenger on one of our services,” said Entrada Travel Group by e-mail. “The police were called to answer and investigate the issue. No one was injured during the incident, and the service resumed.”
He said he could not comment more in the current investigation.
Harrison congratulated the bus driver for realizing and taking action.
“We would like to recognize and congratulate the bus driver, who noticed that something was not correct and took immediate measures, preventing what could have been a worse result,” he said.
Kaiwaka is around 60 miles north of Auckland along the country’s central artery, State Highway 1.
