Father charged after three children left car and walked to 7-Eleven for help

Detectives have charged a man who allegedly left three children alone in a car overnight, before they walked into a 7-Eleven petrol station on Monday morning.

The children – a three-year-old girl and two boys, aged five and six – went missing on the Gold Coast, after they left a Paradise Point property in their father’s car at 4.30pm on Sunday.

The children were found about 7am on Monday after they walked into a 7-Eleven petrol station on Rochester Drive in Mount Warren Park, Logan, about 30 kilometres north of where they were last seen, police said.

The car had been left parked on the side of a suburban street.

The children had walked about 30 to 40 metres from the car to the petrol station for help, where an employee called police.

Their biological father had been found by police hours earlier, about 10.15pm, at a property in Slacks Creek following a disturbance.

The 27-year-old man was taken into custody.

Detective Acting Superintendent Mark White said it appeared the children were OK, but were being medically assessed by paramedics.

“The responding police did a great job in making inquiries – the issue of contacting the biological mother, other family and friends, making other inquiries – and we got to the point where we felt it necessitated an amber alert,” he said.