Harrowing image of cop with baby after police smash car window to rescue two kids at Dee Why, NSW

Haunting images have emerged of the moment a female police officer tenderly cradles a baby after the one-year-old and another child, 4, were removed from hot, locked car in a frantic rescue outside a shopping centre on Monday afternoon. 

Dramatic footage obtained exclusively by Daily Mail Australia showed police officers using a hammer and baton to smash open the front passenger side window of the Honda hatchback in a car park at Dee Why on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

Alarmed shoppers had called emergency services after seeing the two children alone and strapped into the back of the locked car sometime after 2pm.

Both children were removed from the car unharmed with new images captured in the aftermath of the dramatic rescue showing a female police officer cradling the youngest child.

The driver, a young woman who rushed back to the car with her groceries to find it surrounded by police and onlookers, was spoken to by officers at the scene and could still face charges that carry a potential jail sentence.

A police officer tenderly cradles a baby – the one-year-old left locked in the car on Monday – after cops successfully rescue the child and a 4-year-old from the sweltering car park

NSW police confirmed on Tuesday that officers have ‘not yet’ charged the woman, but she could be liable under the Children and Young Persons Care and Protection Act.

If charged and convicted of failing to care for a child, she could face a maximum $22,000 fine or six months in prison.

NSW Law sets out that a person who leaves any child or young person in their care inside a motor vehicle without proper supervision for such a period that the child becomes emotionally distressed or physically impaired is guilty of an offence.

The witness who captured the dramatic incident on camera told Daily Mail Australia they saw NRMA roadside assistance arrive alongside Fire & Rescue NSW.

The witness believed another onlooker had called triple-zero after spotting the children inside. 

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The witness said the Honda’s driver had hurried back to the car with shopping and was ‘clearly in shock with what she was seeing’.

A cop takes a hammer and then a baton to the front passenger side window of the woman’s Honda hatchback after shoppers reported seeing two children inside the locked vehicle

A woman returning to the car with three bags of shopping after police successfully rescued two children, aged one and four, from the locked hatchback on Monday afternoon

‘It was certainly not “cool” in the parking garage so it is very dangerous to leave children alone in here,’ the witness said. 

It comes just weeks after a toddler died in a sweltering car in Glenfield in south-west Sydney, as horrified family members broke down at the scene.

Temperatures in the Glenfield area reached 34C on February 2, the day the three-year-old was found in the vehicle outside a grocery store. 

NSW Police officers also had to smash a window in order to reach the child inside, but they were too late.