Dunfermline Childminder Pleads Guilty to Neglect After 27 Children Found Unsupervised

A self-employed childminder from Dunfermline has admitted to leaving more than two dozen children alone and unsupervised in her home, in a case that has raised serious questions about the oversight of childcare provision in Scotland.

Amanda Mathewson, 55, entered a guilty plea at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court to charges of wilfully neglecting, abandoning and exposing children to a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to their health. The offending occurred at several addresses in Dunfermline and other locations across Fife, according to the court.

The scale of the breach was laid bare during the hearing, where it emerged that Mathewson had 27 children in her home at the time of her arrest — 19 more than the maximum number she was licensed to care for. She had been registered to look after a maximum of eight children at any one time under conditions set by the Care Inspectorate.

Those conditions also stipulated that no more than six of the children in her care could be aged under 12, no more than three could have started primary school, and no more than one could be under 12 months old. The court heard that when she was arrested, Mathewson was looking after 15 children aged under 12, 10 children below primary school age, and two infants under the age of one.

Procurator fiscal Vicki Bell told the court that the matter came to light after two parents grew suspicious when they were told their children were not present while Mathewson carried out a school run. The parents decided to check for themselves, going secretly to the school, where they discovered their children were not with the childminder despite being in her care.

They then went to Mathewson's home, where they heard a child screaming and found five children unattended in the garden. One of the children told the witnesses there were no adults inside the house and that Mathewson had instructed them to wait in the garden.

When the parents approached the door to check whether any adults were present, they heard another child screaming hysterically inside. The door was unlocked, and upon entering, they found a child crying under the kitchen table.

A further nine children, all aged under five, were discovered in an upstairs bedroom, with two of them strapped into prams. The children were described as distressed but uninjured. Police were called to the property, and Mathewson told officers the children had been left alone for at least 30 minutes.

Ring doorbell footage shown to the court revealed that this was the second occasion that day on which the children had been left inside the house unsupervised. Mathewson has worked as a self-employed childminder for three decades, and the court heard she had offered childcare places for more children than she could reasonably provide care for at the time.

The case sits in stark contrast to the findings of a Care Inspectorate report published in August 2023, based on an unannounced inspection carried out about a year before her arrest. That inspection rated areas including care, learning and the setting as "very good" — the second-highest level on the quality scale.

The report stated that children were cared for in a comfortable, welcoming and homely environment, and that they were cared for with warmth, kindness and a nurturing approach. The chasm between those official findings and the conditions described in court raises uncomfortable questions about how effectively routine inspections can detect serious failures in home-based childcare settings.

Sheriff John MacRitchie deferred sentencing until 6 November to allow background reports to be compiled. Mathewson's bail was continued in the meantime, meaning she will remain at liberty until her next court appearance.

The case is likely to intensify scrutiny of the registration and monitoring regime for childminders in Scotland, particularly around how statutory limits on the number of children in care are enforced. Childminders operate largely independently in domestic settings, making regular and rigorous oversight essential to safeguarding the children entrusted to them.

For the families involved, the events have clearly been deeply distressing. The fact that it took the instincts of two suspicious parents — rather than a formal inspection process — to uncover the situation will be a source of concern for regulators and policymakers alike as they consider what lessons must be drawn from this case.