Little kids found alone with father's body nearly 24 hours after his sudden death
A grieving mother is calling on schools to make extra checks on students who don’t turn up after her two young daughters spent nearly 24 hours with the body of their father after his sudden death.
Helen Daykin was not at her Halifax home when her husband Chris died of heart failure but her daughters Pearl and Iris were.
The UK mother was travelling for work when her girls, aged two and four, tried to wake up their dad. They even put indigestion pills in his mouth.
When Chris didn’t answer his wife’s call that morning, she assumed he was busy preparing Pearl for her third week of school.
It wasn’t until later that night when Ms Daykin’s mother found all the lights turned off and the milk outside that Mr Daykin’s body was found - with the shaken young girls cuddled up next to him.
More than one year on from Mr Daykin’s 2016 death, his widow said their children are still impacted by that fateful night.
"How the children didn't hurt themselves I've no idea,” she told BBC.
“They spent the whole day upstairs, they didn't come down at all. They were hungry. They played with all my shoes and make-up, but they didn't venture further in the house.
“Pearl can tell me every single detail and relives it often. I can't leave the room without her shouting for me or wanting to be with me.”
She said Pearl’s school did try and contact Chris when Pearl didn’t show up but she said they should have called her too.
“Please go and ask your child's school what their policy is on 'First Day Calling'. If you don't get a satisfactory answer, keep pushing them until you do,” she wrote on Facebook.
“If they can't answer it means they don't know. That's not acceptable, push for a better response.”
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