Saint John police repeatedly had to pick up a small child often found wandering the streets.

A New Brunswick judge is asking the Department of Social Development to explain its actions after a small child was found on the streets, multiple times by different neighbours.

Judge William McCarroll said he'd like to know how social workers could have let a small child find his way onto the streets of Saint John several times.

The judge's comments came on Thursday when the mother pleaded guilty to child abandonment.

Patrick Wilbur, a Crown prosecutor, said the police called social services every single time they found the child outside his home.

The police were so frustrated, criminal charges were laid.

"It's an unusual charge. It's only because police were concerned that they had to be called repeatedly in almost identical circumstances, it was because they had concerns," Wilbur said.

Police reports say most of the incidents happened when the child was just three years old.

Several times, he was found wandering the streets in nothing but a soiled diaper.

He was often discovered by female citizens who took him in, gave him food, cleaned him up and, not seeing any sign of a parent, finally called the Saint John Police.

In February 2010, he was spotted crawling out a window early in the morning on a busy city street.

The temperature was below zero degrees, there was snow on the ground.

Police say the mother never even knew he was missing.

McCarroll said he was shocked to learn that sometimes the child had wandered as much as one kilometre away from home, in nothing but a diaper and astonished that he came to no harm.

The judge ordered a presentence report to better understand the mother's situation.

He said he also looks forward to hearing from the Department of Social Development.

In a statement late Friday, the department said it will comply.

The final straw

The final straw for the police, came last August, when a woman walking her dog found him outside at 6:15 a.m.

Responding officers recognized him and when they went to the mother's home, which as they knew from previous experience, she seemed unaware he was gone.

Currently, the child remains with his mother, as she awaits that sentencing hearing on April 18.

Her duty counsel said she's been better supervised, and the child has not escaped since the charges were laid.