Escape and discovery
Three pupils from a primary school for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) were found two miles from the premises after escaping through a long-standing gap in the perimeter fence. The children, aged between seven and nine, left Red Hall Primary School in Darlington on the afternoon of June 3 and were located roughly an hour later near the River Skerne, close to Darlington Police Station, during heavy rain. Durham Police had been alerted at 2.20pm and deployed drones alongside ground officers to assist with the search.
The pupils attend the school’s dedicated provision for social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs. One of the children involved had absconded from the site on two previous occasions within the past six months, each time being found within an hour on the Red Hall estate. The gap in the fence through which the three left has been a known vulnerability for years. The school itself has acknowledged that the opening has been “repeatedly filled in over the last few years,” yet it remained unsecured. One parent claimed the breach had been present for approximately two years.
Red Hall Primary is a mainstream community school catering for children aged two to eleven, with around 205 pupils on roll. A significant proportion – 58.6% – are eligible for free school meals, and 11% have a first language other than English. Its SEN unit, which supports the SEMH needs of current pupils, has capacity for sixteen children, with eleven enrolled. The school was last inspected by Ofsted in January 2025 and was rated “Good” across all areas, though from September 2024 the watchdog no longer issues an overall effectiveness judgement for state-funded schools. The executive headteacher is Julie Davidson; the headteacher and designated safeguarding lead (DSL) is Helen Tomlinson.
Parental concerns and school response
Parents have expressed fury over the incident and the way it was handled. One mother, a 36-year-old dental therapist who asked to remain anonymous, arrived at the school on Headingley Crescent at 2.15pm to collect her eight-year-old daughter, who has autism and ADHD. Instead of a normal pickup, she found police vehicles and drones overhead. “It was horrific. You don’t expect something to happen like that in this day and age,” she said. She claimed the school did not contact her about the disappearance; she only learned of it when she arrived. Another parent, Sammie Daniel, said police officers brought her son home in the pouring rain and that she too received no communication from the school during the search. “I don’t understand why I wasn’t informed when it happened,” she said.
Ms Davidson, the executive headteacher, has stated that parents were “contacted promptly” when the incident occurred and that police were informed without delay. “We take the safety and wellbeing of all our students extremely seriously. When this incident took place, the parents of the children involved were contacted promptly to let them know what had happened, as were the police,” she said. The school’s safeguarding policies align with Department for Education guidance, including Keeping Children Safe in Education, and the DSL team includes deputy leads. However, parents dispute the school’s account. The anonymous mother said she only found out on arrival, while Ms Daniel was informed by a police officer, not by school staff.
The anonymous mother has submitted a formal complaint to Ms Davidson, questioning why “a known escape route was not secured” and demanding to know why additional safeguarding measures had not been put in place after her daughter’s earlier disappearances. “I don’t understand how a school can let this happen, let alone a Send school,” Ms Daniel added. “It makes you not want to drop your kid off at school. You drop them off at school, and you expect them to be safe.”
Ongoing investigation
The mother is now calling for a “serious safeguarding investigation” and has scheduled a meeting with the school. Darlington Borough Council has been developing a SEND strategy for 2025–2029, acknowledging capacity pressures across specialist provision, with a 13.5% rise in requests for Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan assessments compared with December 2022. A joint review by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission in November 2024 found “inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people” in Darlington’s SEND services, including delays of up to 42 months for autism and ADHD diagnoses and a lack of a clear assessment process for learning disabilities.
Durham Constabulary, which responded to the school’s call, operates the Philomena Protocol – a system designed to collect vital information about children at risk of going missing to speed up safe recovery. A Durham Police spokesman said: “Police were called just before 2.20pm on Wednesday (June 3) to assist with a search for three children who had been reported missing from Red Hall Primary School, in Darlington. Officers attended and located the children around an hour later.”
