Two parents had a hunch and didn’t ignore it. They had been told their children weren’t with the nanny during the school run.
They went to the school, didn’t find the children with her, and headed to her house. There, they heard a child screaming and found five little ones in the garden, unsupervised. One told them there were no adults inside and that Amanda Mathewson had told them to wait outside.
The door was unlocked. Inside, another child was crying under the kitchen table, and nine children under five were in an upstairs bedroom; two of them were strapped into strollers. They were distressed but unharmed. There were 27 children in total, 19 more than her licence allowed her to care for.
When the police were alerted, the 55-year-old woman, a self-employed childminder for three decades in Dunfermline, Scotland, insisted the children had been left alone for no more than 30 minutes. Footage from her Ring doorbell showed it was the second time that day she had left them inside, and investigators concluded it was habitual. Mathewson pleaded guilty to neglect and abandonment at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, and the offence spanned 50 weeks.
