Mother who abandoned child outside New York restaurant in 1997 claims her arrest was unfair

Her baby was 14-months-old at the time

Diane Bondareff (AP)

A Danish woman who was arrested in 1997 after she left her baby outside a restaurant in New York has said her case was dealt with unfairly.

In an interview with the New York Post, Anette Sørensen explained she felt it was time to share her side of the story, which she claims is quite different from the defamatory one that circulated at the time of her arrest.

“[My] case that happened 20 years ago is even more relevant today,” she said.

Sørensen left her 14-month-old daughter Liv in a pram outside a restaurant in the East Village while she and her partner were having drinks and dinner inside.

She explained that leaving one's child on the street while dining was custom behaviour in Copenhagen, where she is from, and is a reflection of the Danes’ trustful culture.

Though she insists that she went out to check on her throughout the evening, it wasn’t long until an onlooker phoned the police and the couple were subsequently arrested and charged for child-endangerment.

This resulted in Sørensen having her daughter taken away from her by social care workers.

When the story broke, people in New York were shocked at Sørensen’s behaviour, however, the response was somewhat different in Denmark, where locals were astonished that leaving a child unattended could be a chargeable offence.

Sørensen ended up suing the city for $20m (£1.5m) for false-arrest, reports The Guardian, and later won $66,000 (£49,447) in 1999 after a jury concluded that the police should not have strip-searched her.

The mother, whose daughter is now 21-years-old, wrote a novel inspired by her experiences in 2012 and is now raising funds via Kickstarter to get an English translation produced.

“It’s a way of getting back what I never got,” she told the New York Post.

“I would like [it] if I could just say what I think.”