Boy, 12, flees to Bali using family credit card
SYDNEY: Australian police were investigating how a 12-year-old boy managed to fly alone to the Indonesian island of Bali and spend four days at a resort using his parents’ credit card.
The boy ran away from his Sydney home after a row with his mother, flying first to the Western Australian city of Perth on budget airline Jetstar and then on to Bali, according to commercial broadcaster Channel Nine.
“He just doesn’t like the word ‘no’, and that’s what I got, a kid in Indonesia,” his mother, Emma, told Channel Nine in a programme that aired late on Monday.
“It’s too easy, it’s way too easy. There’s a problem in our system,” she said, calling for tighter controls on air travel by young people.
The family had previously visited Bali on holiday and Emma said her son had already tried to book flights there on his own but had been knocked back by airlines because he did not have a letter from her.
“We screamed, we begged for help (from Australian authorities) for weeks on end,” Emma added.
The boy, who “wanted to go on an adventure”, said he was told by airline staff this time that he did not need permission from his parents to board the flights.
He spent four days in Bali, where he said he checked into a hotel, hired a scooter and drank beer before a friend alerted his mother to a geotagged video of himself playing in a swimming pool.
The holiday cost his parents A$8,000 (RM23,830), according to Channel Nine. The boy was found by Indonesian police the following day. His parents then flew to Bali to take him home. — AFP