SASKATOON — Three children, aged eight, 10 and 13, were left alone for three days before Christmas when their single-parent father was arrested at a hospital and no one was notified.

While they were alone, one of the children, a 10-year-old boy, was burned after spilling spaghetti on his bare chest as he removed it from the microwave oven, the child said in an interview. There was no telephone at the house.

The children's father, Randy Lafond, blames the arresting officer for not informing anyone, but Lafond also appears to have missed opportunities to ensure the children were safe.

Police Chief Clive Weighill said he is aware of the allegation and has launched an internal investigation.

"Standard procedure is if you go to a home and their kids there you call social services. ... I don't know if that's a true portrayal of what happened. We have no way to defend ourselves until we have it investigated," Weighill said.

The children, Randy, 13, Bryton, 10, and Shelayne, eight, said they were sad and worried when their father and no other grown ups came to visit.

Randy awoke the first night to the sound of Bryton crying.

Bryton said he had heated a flat container of frozen spaghetti in the microwave and was shirtless when he removed it. The container folded at the centre and collapsed, causing it to spill onto his chest. The resulting burn blistered and wrinkled his skin, he said.

Bryton said he held a bag of frozen corn to his chest to ease the pain that got "badder then better than badder," over the three days they remained alone.

The children's mother arrived about the same time as their aunt did on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Their mother drove Bryton to the hospital that day, where he was treated and released, Randy's mother, Winona Lafond said.

In a phone interview from jail Thursday, Randy Lafond, 39, said he asked the police officer who arrested him to notify his mother, but did not get any assurance from the officer.

Lafond said he declined his right to call a lawyer when he was booked in at the police station that day.

Lafond was sick with a suspected case of food poisoning and didn't call his mother from jail over the next three days, before the children were discovered.

He said he thought she must be angry at him for getting arrested and wasn't calling him for that reason.

Lafond was brought to court on the morning of Dec. 22, where records show he was represented by a court worker

Her notes show Lafond asked to have medical assistance but there is no mention of the children.

The court worker has said she knows Lafond and his mother and would have called her if she had been aware there was a question of the children's care.

When asked why he didn't tell the court worker about the children, Lafond originally said he didn't know why he didn't tell her, then he said he didn't think anybody would do anything to help him, then he said he told the court worker about the children and gave her his mother's phone number.

Lafond's mother, Winona Lafond, said she knows the court worker who assisted Randy that day, but she never received a call.

The incident began Dec. 20, when Lafond said he suffered stomach pain and vomiting overnight and through the morning of the 21st. He sent one of his children to a neighbour's house to call an ambulance.

Ambulance records show a call to Lafond's rented house at 1:27 p.m. on Dec. 21.

Police arrived before the ambulance and took Lafond outside, where he was examined by paramedics and taken to hospital, he said.

Lafond said he told Randy Jr., who has taken the baby sitter training course, that he would be back in a few hours.

While being admitted at City Hospital emergency ward, the police officer who had taken him from the house arrested him on warrants for failing to appear in court on the theft charge, Lafond said.

Lafond said he asked the officer, "three or four times" to have someone take care of his children.

Lafond alleges the officer was rude to him and told him "it was none of his business."

"He said I should've thought of that before I got into trouble," Lafond said.

Lafond said he was handcuffed to a hospital bed until about 4:30 p.m. when the officer took him to the police station and booked him in.

Lafond said he declined when offered his right to call a lawyer. He was held in police cells that night and appeared in court on Dec. 22.

At his first appearance Lafond was remanded until the 23rd, when he was remanded again to Dec. 29. He pleaded guilty that day to theft of copper wire from SaskTel in Sept. and was sentenced to four months in jail.

On the afternoon of Dec. 24, Winona Lafond sent her daughter to get Randy's children and they were discovered alone.

Winona Lafond called the police station, the jail and all the hospitals that night to find out what had happened to Randy, but was told by all they couldn't release information about an adult.

On Dec. 25, a staff member at the jail confirmed Lafond was in custody there, Winona Lafond said.

The children are living with their grandmother.

Weighill said Randy Lafond has not yet approached the complaints commission of the Saskatchewan Police Commission, which would trigger the formal procedure, however he has been informed a complaint is being prepared and has received a written statement from Winona Lafond outlining the allegation.

If the complaints commission deems the allegations worthy of an investigation, commission staff could conduct it or they could ask the Saskatoon Police Service to do it, Weighill said.

If the allegation is substantiated, it could lead to an officer being disciplined, ranging from a verbal warning all the way up to suspension, Weighill said.

badam@sp.canwest.com