OECE concerned about potential ‘cover up’ related to child abduction
IN THE MEDIA – October 21, 2025
The Ministry of Education has publicly confirmed that an early childhood centre that a child was abducted from did breach regulations.
In a story published by the Rotorua Daily Times on October 17, the Ministry backtracked on previous statements it made, including to the Office of Early Childhood Education, that the service had not breached regulations, after a man went over a fence and snatched a 3-year-old girl, intending to sexually assault her.
Fortunately the girl was able to get away and ran back to the centre.
The publication spoke to the OECE’s chief advisor Dr Sarah Alexander to get her view on how the Ministry had dealt with the release of information about the incident.
She labelled how it had been handled as a “cover up”.
The name of the centre has been permanently suppressed by the court.
However, Alexander said the Ministry still could have been more transparent about what had happened and should support ECE services to learn what they can do to prevent this type of incident or similar from happening again.
Security footage obtained by police showed the man loitered outside the centre’s grounds for more than an hour. He peeped over and perched on the boundary fence and jumped into a play area twice – he took the girl the second time.
