Police hunt parents of baby locked inside hotel room safe in Niagara Falls

Shocking: The baby was found locked inside the hotel safe

Police are hunting for the parents of a baby found locked inside a hotel safe.

The family are believed to have alerted staff that their child had been locked inside the safe at around 10am on Tuesday morning.

A maintenance worker arrived and freed the infant, who was “alert and crying”, according to police.

But the couple left the Howard Johnson Hotel near Niagara Falls before officers were notified of the incident.

Disappeared: The couple left the hotel before police were notified

Police are now trying to trace the family to determine the child’s welfare and how the baby ended up locked inside the safe.

Detective Constable Amanda Sanders, of Niagara regional police’s child abuse unit, said: “At this point we don’t know if it’s anything more than a preventable accident.”

The infant is believed to be less the a year old and small enough to fit inside the safe, which measures around 50cm x 35cm x 43cm.

The family is from the Brooklyn area of New York and believed to be travelling in a 2015 grey Ford van, with the license plate B31EUB.

Niagara regional police spokesman Scott Kraushar said US border services have been notified about the incident and the van has not crossed back into America.