Jo Anne Moore, 42, of Sapphire Crescent, Kelso, appeared before magistrate Michael Allen in Bathurst Local Court to answer the charges, including allegations she left six children, one as young as 17 months, unattended in a Bathurst shopping centre car park while she went to a store inside.

The court also heard Moore let a 17-year-old “visitor” to her house take two children from the property for 40 minutes after she received a surprise visit from a Bathurst Regional Council child development officer.

In a letter to the court, Moore explained her actions as handling a difficult and stressful situation “as best she could”.

She also told the court she was fully booked on the day in question and the unexpected arrival of three more children made her workload “most difficult”.

Moore was charged with nine counts of not adequately supervising a child in Family Day Care, two counts of number exceeding the prescribed limit of children, eight counts of a child leaving the venue not as prescribed, two counts of an educator leaving a child alone with a visitor to Family Day Care and one count of failing to keep prescribed documents available for inspection.

All the matters relate to incidents which occurred on January 21, 2013 when Moore failed in her capacity as a Family Day Care educator to ensure the children in her care were adequately supervised.

The court heard that on that day Moore drove to the Bathurst City Centre with six children, despite having no authority to take any of them from her residence.

She had left another child, aged eight, at her home in the care of a 14-year-old.

She arrived at the Bathurst City Centre at around 8.40am, parked underneath and went into the Reject Shop, leaving six children unsupervised in the car for two minutes. She then returned home.

She received an unannounced visit from a council child development officer at 9.35am who noted Moore had exceeded the authorised number of children in her care. The court heard that the officer’s report did not include two more children who were in a bedroom at the time of the visit.

Moore told the officer one of the children was soon to be picked up by their grandmother which, she said, would bring the number of children down to an authorised level.

At 10.30am, another mother went to drop her child into day care, but Moore declined.

At around the same time, a witness, who was waiting in a parked car outside, saw a 17-year-old “visitor” leave the residence with two children.

The council officer left the house at 11.05am and, five minutes later, the 17-year-old returned with the two children.

The court further heard that Moore continued to care for all children until 3.45pm, when one was collected, and still exceeded the authorised number of children allowed in her care until 4.30pm.

There were also no records kept for three of the children who spent the day at the residence.

A day later, Bathurst Regional Council received a complaint about what had happened and the following day Moore’s registration was suspended.

In court on Monday, Mr Allen convicted Moore on all charges, fining her a total of $3300.