TODDLER HORROR
Toyota HiLux stolen from front of florist in broad daylight with girl, 3, in back seat
FOR 13 nightmarish minutes yesterday, the panicked parents of a three-year-old girl didn’t know where their daughter was.
The child had been left alone for just a moment, strapped securely into her car seat in the family’s HiLux ute about 1pm.
Dressed in a yellow outfit just like that of the Wiggles’ fan favourite Emma – the Wiggles performed a number of shows at Darwin Entertainment Centre yesterday – she was left alone momentarily as her mum ducked into Beija Flor florist on Dick Ward Dr at Coconut Grove.
Thieves needed only seconds steal the vehicle with the little girl inside.
Police poured into the suburb to scour the streets for any trace of the little girl.
Thirteen minutes after the little girl was taken, she was found unharmed in De Latour St, just a few hundred metres from the florist. It appeared the thief panicked when he noticed his unexpected passenger in the back, and abandoned both her and the ute.
Photographs taken soon after the little girl was reunited with her parents show her safe in her relieved father’s arms.
NT Police said they were still looking for the perpetrator yesterday.
Florist Maria Okwa said the girl’s mother was beside herself when she discovered the child was missing.
“It was horrible; it wasn’t for very long but it was awful,” she said. In a strange coincidence, an almost identical incident occurred in Perth within minutes of the accidental kidnapping in Coconut Grove.
In that instance, a two-year- old girl was in the back of a car stolen from a home at Forrestfield about noon.
Soon after, the child was found outside a nearby supermarket.
As of yesterday evening, the driver remained on the run.