A MONMOUTH couple left their three children home alone while they went to a crown court hearing 30 miles away.

The children, aged ten, four and two had been left alone in the house while their parents spent a day in court in Gloucester.

When police arrived following a complaint the children refused to answer the door.

An officer eventually spoke to the eldest child through a window. Police waited with the children for an hour and a half to see if their parents came home, but after waiting in vain the children were taken to a place of safety.

When the parents arrived home later they found their children had been taken away.

Abergavenny magistrates placed the couple under a community rehabilitation order in the care of a probation officer for a year after reading social inquiry reports.

The couple had admitted three counts of child neglect at an earlier hearing. Prosecutor Robert Hawkins said a detective constable and a social worker called at the house on April 5 after receiving an earlier complaint that three young children had been left at home alone.

There was no reply. On April 9 they again visited the property and got no reply until the officer looked through the window and spoke to the eldest child.

Both parents admitted they were wrong to leave the children at home on their own but said they had had to attend crown court in Gloucester.

Defending, Tristan Clapp said they fully accepted they should not have left the children without an adult, but their babysitter had let them down. The mother was the main prosecution witness in a case involving her former partner, who was accused of assaulting one of his children.