Three-year-old Cain Trainor left his playgroup yesterday and made his own way home.
The alarm was immediately raised when the Little Owls nursery in Middlebrough discovered Cain was missing and alerted his mother Gemma.
He was missing for forty minutes and in that time he managed to make his way home, a journey which took him 1-5 miles.
Speaking to
The Evening Gazette about the moment she got the call, Gemma said: "I felt sick - there aren’t words to describe that feeling of something terrible happening which is totally out of your control.
“I rushed to the school and when I got there, they were all in tears. The headteacher came running over, saying they didn’t know what had happened.
"Then within seconds, I got a phone call from my next door neighbour saying Cain had arrived home. I burst into tears with relief.”
According to Little Owls,Cain went missing during the nursery's changeover period from school to the after-school session.
Gemma said that she would continue to send Cain to Little Owls despite the incident: “The nursery couldn’t apologise enough and said they would put in various safeguards to ensure it wouldn’t happen again, so at least something positive has come out of this in terms of security.
“I want to keep a good relationship with the nursery and the school. I still don’t know the details of how it happened.
"The statement the nursery gave said he ran into a crowd and out of sight, but I’m still not sure at what point they lost him".
