{"id":469206,"date":"2026-06-09T23:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T23:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/469206\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T23:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T23:25:10","slug":"teenage-pupil-forgotten-left-sitting-in-locked-school-van-at-east-auckland-house-for-two-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/469206\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenage pupil forgotten, left sitting in locked school van at East Auckland house for two hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI trusted this driver. He was a nice guy and I trusted he would get my daughter there and back safely.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo other New Zealand family should ever have to experience this terrifying nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parents have laid official complaints with the Ministry of Education, Cross Country Rentals and the East Auckland high school over the incident. <\/p>\n

The Ministry told the Herald it has gone to the transport provider for an \u201curgent explanation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeaving a student unattended in a vehicle is unacceptable and falls well short of expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ministry is undertaking a review of SESTA as part of ongoing monitoring and continuous improvement. This review is focused on how services are working in practice for students and families, including whether safety and operational standards are being consistently met.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis includes closely examining roles and responsibilities, safety procedures, and identifying any areas for improvement, particularly in relation to supporting students with additional needs during transport.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, an 11-year-old autistic non-verbal boy was left alone all morning in a Ritchies van<\/a>, sparking a demand from the Ministry of Education for an explanation from the transport company.<\/p>\n

The teenage girl\u2019s mother, who did not want for her family to be identified, received a call from the school just before 11am to notify her that her daughter had not turned up to the off-campus placement.<\/p>\n

She then called the van driver who operated under Specialised School Transport Assistance (SESTA) \u2013 a ministry-provided service for children with specific needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me he had dropped her off. I thought the worst. I felt like I was losing my mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe then gasped and went: \u2018I\u2019m so sorry she\u2019s in the car\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just in shock. I was worried, scared and asked: \u2018what\u2019s happened, how could you forget?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very sincere he apologised a lot and asked if I was going to tell his company … I said: \u2018yes of course I will!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Her daughter had waited in the car in a suburb she didn\u2019t know, too \u201cterrified and confused\u201d to react.<\/p>\n

After realising his mistake, the driver took the daughter to her work placement, where her mother left work to get her and spend the day consoling her.<\/p>\n

The school told the Herald it is \u201cdeeply concerned by the very distressing incident\u201d.<\/p>\n

“Our immediate focus has been on supporting the student and ensuring she and her family receive the care and reassurance they need. We are also working closely with the Ministry of Education and the transport provider to ensure the right safeguards are in place so this cannot happen again and all our students remain safe when using external transport providers.”<\/p>\n

Her mother called Cross Country Rentals to let them know of the \u201chighly dangerous situation\u201d and they asked if they could ring over the weekend to check in on her daughter.<\/p>\n

She said they were still to make contact with the family.<\/p>\n

The Herald has approached the transport provider for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had to reassure and convince my daughter to go back to school. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s left her with severe anxiety, distress and a complete loss of security.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe will be okay but it really confused and scared her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family has a temporary new driver and has warned parents using SESTA to check on the policies and background of drivers.<\/p>\n

It follows the death of 8-year-old Gurshabad Singh, who escaped a SESTA-provided van and drowned just over two weeks ago.<\/a><\/p>\n

A police investigation has been launched, while the coroner, WorkSafe and the Ministry of Education are also making inquiries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI trusted this driver. He was a nice guy and I trusted he would get my daughter there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9526,1975,51,1558,682,15211,28157,3806,17515,2082,96183,11551,10053,78,2944,27705,101,39084,34438,9812,111,43,139,69,14727,26227,54757,4062,37451,1962,9631,10706,1237,11427,4576],"class_list":["post-469206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-another","tag-at","tag-auckland","tag-been","tag-being","tag-drivers","tag-dropped","tag-east","tag-experience","tag-for","tag-forgotten","tag-hours","tag-house","tag-in","tag-inside","tag-instead","tag-left","tag-location","tag-locked","tag-needs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-outside","tag-parked","tag-pupil","tag-school","tag-sitting","tag-special","tag-student","tag-teenage","tag-two","tag-van","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}