A man has been charged after he allegedly stole a car while a toddler was in the back seat in Lake Macquarie in New South Wales.
The 27-year-old allegedly took a parked car with a one-year-old child asleep in the back seat from Groves Road, Bennetts Green on Sunday at 2.30pm.
Police allege the man then stopped the car in a carpark on Groves Road and ran from the car across the Pacific Highway.
The child was not injured in the incident.
Officers arrested the man at a Windale home on Cherry Street at 3pm yesterday.
He has been charged with unlawfully taking a motor vehicle with a person in it, taking and driving conveyance without the consent of an owner and learner driver not accompanied by a driver, police officer or tester.
The man was refused bail and will appear in Belmont Local Court today.
