Mum slams 'thoughtless' cops

THOUGHTLESS police officers were today given a dressing down after a mother claimed they made her leave her 12-week-old baby alone in the car while they spoke to her about road safety.

Furious Maria Cross says her little boy was red in the face, crying uncontrollable and had been sick all down his front when she returned to her car after police officers pulled her over for not wearing a seat belt.

"I didn't want to leave my baby but when a policeman stops you, you get all flustered," said the 32-year-old mother-of-two.

"He was crying already and I told them he would be all wound up by the time I got back - but they asked me to step out of the car."

Housewife Mrs Cross was near to Civic Drive when her son Reece, who was riding in a child seat at the front of the car, dropped his dummy.

She slipped her arm out of her seat belt to pick it up and moments later she spotted the police car, its blue lights flashing. One of the two police officers in the panda car approached her and asked her to step out of the car.

"I was in the police car for about ten minutes. When I got back to my car my little boy was crying his eyes out, he was bright red and had been sick all down his jacket," she said, recalling the incident.

"He could have choked on that while I was in the police car and I wouldn't have known anything about it.

"The police weren't rude but I just don't think they should have made me get out of the car. Looking back it was stupid to have taken my seat belt off but being a mother it's automatic that you sort your baby out.

"They were lecturing me saying 'you can't have been looking at the road' but I was more distressed driving back after all that than before they pulled me over."

Mrs Cross who lives with her husband Sean, 30, and other son Ryan, five, at Winchester Way, Ipswich said that she is waiting to hear the outcome of a formal complaint she made the incident.

A spokeswoman for Suffolk Police said that the matter would be dealt with through the formal police complaint procedure.

She declined to comment further.