A seven-year-old child has been found almost 50 kilometres from home after a frantic search in a small Northern Territory community.
NT Police Duty Superintendent Craig Garland said a distraught mother reported her son missing at 9:00pm on Tuesday in Batchelor, about 100 kilometres south of Darwin.
After searching for six hours, he was found at 3:00am with other family members in a town about 45 kilometres away.
"He decided that it might be a good idea to leave school and catch the school bus up to other family members in Acacia but not tell Mum that he was going," he said.
"So Mum was none the wiser and it wasn't until we were able to put two and two together ... we located the young boy with family members in Acacia.
"This chap was a very confident young man and yes, led us on a merry chase for most of the evening."
Duty Superintendent Garland said finding the boy was an enormous relief for everyone involved.
"Small victories, I call it," he said.
"As you can imagine, a seven-year-old child going missing, we don't like to think the worst but sometimes you have to prepare for that."
