Five seconds to save a child's life

Marie Ireland with her certificate of appreciation from Queensland's Assistant Commissioner of Police. (Contrary to what the certificate says, Marie is Miss, not Mrs, Ireland). Photo / Peter Jackson

For a moment Marie Ireland had trouble taking in what she was seeing from her bedroom window in Mudgeeraba, on Queensland's Gold Coast. And that's all the time she had to take it in and react.

What she was witnessing, on May 11, 2018, was the kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy, who had a blanket thrown over him and was bundled into a car as he arrived home from school. Marie had just five seconds to take it all in, then to contact the police.

Her actions, and her description of the car, complete with registration, enabled the police to declare an 'amber alert' and to locate the vehicle just an hour or two later. The boy was released, physically unharmed, the following day, three hours away from his home.

Marie's response to the crime has now been acknowledged with an Queensland Police Assistant Commissioner's certificate of appreciation, which was presented to her in Kaitaia by Northland District Commander Superintendent Tony Hill.

She said last week that she still didn't know what made her look up as she sat on her bed writing, but whatever it was, the youngster had no doubt that she had saved his life. He had been too traumatised to meet her when it was all over, but wrote to her, thanking her for doing exactly that.

It was only after she saw what was happening that she heard two screams from the boy, although her attention was totally focused on reciting the car's registration to herself over and over again, so she could give it to the police.

"I was just in the right place at the right time," she said, adding that she had had the presence of mind not to put her head out the window, in case the kidnapper saw her and realised that there was a witness.

She didn't recall a great deal else, although she told police that she would have recognised the kidnapper, and would be prepared to give evidence against him via audio-visual link. The offender was duly arrested, but he pleaded guilty, and Marie's evidence wasn't needed.

To this day she didn't know what had motivated the abduction, or what happened to the offender.

Marie was in Australia for around 18 months, helping her brother Brian with his trailer home business, but now she's back home at Waiharara, well and truly earning her keep in parents Vern and Rosie Ireland's dairy farm, and still writing. She was working on a screenplay, which has attracted praise in Hollywood, while she was in Australia, and is now turning it into a novel.

It was a fantasy adventure story, she said, with a strong spiritual element, aimed at helping young readers understand themselves and find purpose in life, as well as showing parents how they can help rather than harm their children.

She still plans to find a way of making the film one day, but in the meantime hopes to follow brother Brian, who has just released a sci-fi novel depicting the end of the world, as a published author.

Any kidnapping scenes should be thoroughly convincing.