Boy, 13, Takes Car in Grocka and Causes Crash
A 13-year-old who had fled a children's shelter took an unlocked car with the key in the ignition and crashed it in Grocka, telling police he only wanted a place to sleep.
- A boy aged 13 took an unlocked car in Grocka and shortly afterward caused a road accident.
- The owner had left the vehicle unlocked, with the key in the ignition, outside the house.
- No one was hurt in the crash, but there was significant damage to 2 vehicles.
- The prosecutor is filing no case because the boy is a younger minor below the age of liability, and a social services centre has been notified.
A road accident in Grocka on Friday evening ended without injuries, but with a bleak backstory. Behind the wheel of an unlocked car police found a thirteen-year-old boy. By his own account, he has no parents and lives on the street.
According to police, the boy took a car the owner had left outside the house. The vehicle was unlocked, with the key still in the ignition. The minor got behind the wheel, set off down the street, and soon lost control. Two vehicles were damaged in the collision, but no one was injured.
Police found him at the scene. What he told officers shifted the centre of gravity of this story from a routine damage report to a question about a child left on his own.
What did the boy tell police?
The minor had fled the Children’s Shelter in Belgrade, an institution where children found without supervision or guardianship are placed. He did not stay there. By all accounts he returned to the street, where, he says, he had been living before.
The explanation he gave police was simple. He said he has no parents and lives on the street. He said he meant no harm, that he had seen an unlocked car and wanted to get in so he could sleep.
Those words move the event out of the register of traffic offences and closer to the city’s social picture. The thirteen-year-old was not after a fast drive or a car to keep. He was after a roof over his head. An unlocked car was, in his words, simply somewhere to lie down.
It is worth separating fact from assumption. Everything we know about the motive comes from what the boy himself described, and his living situation has yet to be established by the relevant services. What is not in dispute is that the car was taken, that a crash followed, and that the result is material damage.
Why is the prosecutor filing no case?
Under Serbian law, criminal liability begins at the age of fourteen. Children younger than that are considered to be below the age of liability, and no criminal proceedings can be brought against them, regardless of what they have done. In place of punishment comes protection.
That is why the prosecutor decided not to open proceedings against the boy. He is a younger minor and, in the eyes of the law, cannot be prosecuted. The legal route is thus closed, but society’s duty toward the child remains open.
A social services centre has been notified of the case. Its staff have taken over the boy’s care. It now falls to them to establish the real circumstances in which he lives, whether he truly has no family, and how to provide him with shelter and supervision, this time of a kind he will not start to run from.
The Grocka case is not a great chronicle of violence. It is a story about a child who, instead of ending up in bed, ended up behind the wheel of someone else’s car, because, as he says, he was only looking for a place to sleep. What is our social protection system missing, so that a child like this gets a safe roof over his head before the crash, not after it?
