A snide message was left on the windscreen of a police car parked in a supermarket’s parent bay – as officers searched for a missing vulnerable child.
Officers tweeted a photo of the hand-written note scrawled on a receipt on Monday night after the officers received a 999 call to a Lidl car park.
The message – all in capital letters – read “Nice child in your car Mr Policeman! Guilty!!”
In mitigation, the officers revealed that at the time they were “dealing with two immediate logs, a “vulnerable child that was missing from home and a male that had fallen and sustained a head injury”.
The tweet added that the officer “parked in the 1st space available” at the store in Plymstock, Devon, adding the hashtag #weneedyoursupport.
Acting Sgt Brad Odee said: “Officers were on a blue light response to the Lidl car park in Plymstock at the time following reports of a vulnerable child of whom there were some concerns were raised for.
“We were informed that he was in the car park and it was important that we arrived quickly so we could safeguard him.
“In a completely separate incident there was a gentleman who had fallen and suffered a head injury in the immediate area and officers had to deal with that too.
“He was triaged by the officers and an ambulance called. This all happened at the same time, shortly after 6pm.”
Acting Sgt Odee accepted the police car had been parked in a parent-marked bay of the supermarket car park which has more than 80 bays in total.
He noted: “In all the officers were at the scene for around two hours and following the conclusion of both incidents they returned to find this message on their windscreen.
“We strive to park legally and responsible at all times, but if we’re attending a response incident then that immediacy will take primacy.”
