Dunfermline Childminder Pleads Guilty to Neglecting 27 Children Left Unsupervised at Home

A self-employed childminder from Dunfermline has admitted to a series of neglect offences after authorities discovered she had been looking after far more children than her registration permitted, leaving many of them unsupervised in her home.

Amanda Mathewson, 55, entered guilty pleas 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 court heard that her offending spanned multiple locations in Dunfermline and elsewhere across Fife.

The scale of the breach became clear when prosecutors revealed Mathewson had 27 children at her home on the day in question — 19 more than the maximum number she was licensed to care for. She had spent three decades working as a self-employed childminder before her arrest.

According to Procurator Fiscal Vicki Bell, the case came to light after two parents grew suspicious when they were told their children were not with Mathewson while she carried out a school run. The parents decided to check for themselves, secretly attending the school and confirming their children were not with the childminder, even though they were supposed to be in her care.

They then travelled to Mathewson's home, where they heard a child screaming and discovered five children unattended in the garden. One of the youngsters told the witnesses that no adults were inside the property 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 from within the house. The door was unlocked, and upon entering, they found a child crying beneath the kitchen table.

A search of the property revealed a further nine children, all aged under five, in an upstairs bedroom. Two of them had been strapped into prams. The children were described in court as distressed but uninjured.

Police were called to the scene, and Mathewson told officers that the children had been left alone for at least half an hour. Ring doorbell footage presented to the court showed that this was the second occasion that same day on which the children had been left inside the house without supervision.

The court heard that at the time of her arrest, Mathewson had 15 children aged under 12 in her care, along with 10 children below primary school age and two infants under the age of one. She had offered childcare places to more children than she could reasonably provide care for.

A Care Inspectorate report published in August 2023 stated that Mathewson was registered to look after a maximum of eight children at any one time. Her registration conditions limited her to no more than six children under the age of 12, no more than three who had started primary school, and no more than one child under 12 months old.

Notably, an unannounced inspection carried out roughly a year before her arrest had rated areas including care, learning and the setting as "very good" — the second-highest level on the quality scale. That report described children as being cared for in a comfortable, welcoming and homely environment, with warmth, kindness and a nurturing approach.

The striking contrast between the inspectorate's positive assessment and the conditions officers encountered at the property raises questions about how effectively regulatory oversight can capture the reality of day-to-day childcare practice.

Sheriff John MacRitchie deferred sentencing until 6 November to allow background reports to be prepared. Mathewson's bail was continued, meaning she remains at liberty pending the outcome of those reports.

The case is likely to prompt scrutiny of how childcare registrations are monitored across Scotland and whether routine inspections are sufficient to detect when a minder is operating well beyond the terms of their licence. Childminders occupy a uniquely trusted position, often caring for very young children in domestic settings that are not continuously observed by regulators.

For the families involved, the episode represents a serious breach of that trust. Parents who place their children with a registered childminder reasonably expect that the terms of that registration are being honoured, particularly the limits on how many children can be supervised at once.

Mathewson's guilty plea brings the criminal proceedings closer to resolution, but the wider questions about safeguarding, inspection frequency and enforcement of registration conditions are likely to persist well beyond the sentencing date.