UK News 23-12-2002 Police Trace Mother Of `Home Alone` Boy who: Absentee mother Jill Parker what: Arrested at hotel near her home after leaving 12 year-old son alone for nearly two weeks where: LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Police last night traced the mother of a 12-year-old boy who had been left to fend for himself for almost two weeks," reports The Times. "Jill Parker, 53, was found at the Brewers Inn hotel in Wandsworth, South London, where she had been staying for more than a week. She has been arrested on suspicion of neglect." "No one who saw 12-year-old Rufus Polak as he went through the routine of his daily life during the past two weeks would have guessed the enormity of the burden, the anxiety and loneliness he was carrying," writes Kim Sengupta in The Independent. "He kept up the appearances of normality going regularly to his 9,000-a-year school, Emanuel, leaving notes for the milkman and picking up newspapers from the corner shop. Above all, he kept up his usual cheerful persona to his friends and their parents." "It emerged last night that Jill had told Rufus she needed a break, handed him some money and said she was going to stay in a hotel," says The Sun. "For a couple of days she telephoned regularly to check he was all right but then the calls stopped." "When I asked him where his mum was he just said `She hasn`t been well. She has been in hospital but she`s better now. She`s in a hotel chilling out for a couple of weeks`," says Rufus`s Best pal Robert England, quoted in The Mirror. "I just thought, OK." [... more]

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