Boy, 11, with no passport sent home alone from family holiday

A woman who allegedly sent home her 11-year-old son from an airport to spend Christmas alone was being interviewed by police yesterday.

A woman who allegedly sent home her 11-year-old son from an airport to spend Christmas alone was being interviewed by police yesterday.

Derbyshire officers confirmed that they were questioning a woman aged 33 who had apparently boarded a flight to the Canary Islands with her husband and another child.

The family turned up at Manchester airport on Tuesday with their two children for a three-week holiday, only to find that the eldest boy had no passport. Rather than forgo a Christmas in Fuerteventura, the mother reportedly put her son in a taxi to the family home in the Peak District, giving him the house keys. He was allegedly told there was plenty of food for him to eat in the house. He is thought to have been seen getting out of a taxi when he arrived home. Social workers were subsequently contactedand the family were traced to their hotel on the Spanish holiday island.

Derbyshire County Council said yesterday that the boy had been placed with carers while the police made further inquiries.

The boy's mother arrived back in Derbyshire yesterday and was being interviewed by police on suspicion of abandoning her child. Her husband and the other child remained in the Canary Islands. It is understood she has not been arrested. The council said her son, who cannot be named under an interim care order granted by magistrates at the weekend, was staying with foster parents over Christmas.