The terror at the 90th kindergarten of Agios Panteleimonas at noon on Tuesday, September 30th, when they realized a 4-year-old had escaped the building without being noticed around 1 PM, can only be compared to the fear the little girl felt when, after wandering around, she found herself on Acharnon Avenue. The MEGA video unfortunately doesn’t show “Alice in Wonderland,” but a little girl who wanders in a big, frightening world. The 4-year-old, without knowing it, was probably lucky, as the report states that a 34-year-old mother saw her on Acharnon and Paphos streets and carefully approached her, taking her to a café.
Read: Kindergarten director arrested for endangering a minor – Lost 4-year-old during dismissal
This was the point that led to the happy ending of the case. Around the time the café employee was notifying the Police, who responded immediately, the kindergarten teacher responsible for the child had taken her car and was driving, as the report states, to find her.
Agios Panteleimonas: What eyewitnesses said
According to the report from the “Live News” show on MEGA, the girl escaped the attention of the educators at the 90th Kindergarten of Agios Panteleimonas at 12:40 PM, while police received the alert 25 minutes later.
An eyewitness commented that the incident happened “yesterday (note: 30/9) at noon. Midday, was it 1 o’clock or 12 o’clock? Obviously some other children opened the door to go out and this one went out with the other children. That’s what I understood.” For her part, the café employee commented that the 34-year-old mother informed her. The police officers arrived at the café after a few minutes, while in a photo secured by “Live News,” a police officer can be seen the moment he comforts the four-year-old.
After calming the little girl, he took her in his arms and transferred her to the patrol car.
Legal proceedings against the 59-year-old educator
Meanwhile, the kindergarten teacher under whose supervision the 4-year-old was at the educational institution was reportedly seized by panic as she took to the roads in her car. An eyewitness even commented: “We saw a car with a panicked lady running outside. She tells us ‘we’re from the kindergarten. A child with a braid and a red blouse left. We’re looking to find her.’ It was the kindergarten teacher looking for her. Well, okay, it was her responsibility. Now the children found a door, ‘slipped through’ and went out.
The 4-year-old’s mother picked her up from the police station where officers had taken her. Legal proceedings were initiated against the 59-year-old acting director of the kindergarten. “I was performing my duties handing over our school’s students to their parents when the minor left without being noticed. I am not the director and do not have complete knowledge of the minors attending the school,” the kindergarten teacher stated in her testimony.
She seemed ready to collapse and after describing the events of Tuesday afternoon from her perspective, shortly after 17:30 she was released with a verbal order from the prosecutor.
