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We're talking huge hits, streaming on Hulu whenever

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you're in the mood. Now

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we're talking. It's

0:30

May 10th, 1997, and

0:33

another remarkable event is about to be

0:35

uncovered by... Aria,

0:37

Rebecca, and Ali. The

0:40

Retrospectors! So

0:44

this was the day that Annette Sorensen,

0:46

a tourist from Denmark, was arrested in

0:48

New York City. It wasn't her first

0:50

visit, she'd actually had a liaison there

0:52

as a student, and she'd come back

0:54

to introduce her daughter to the father

0:56

of the child, and they were both

0:59

subsequently arrested for abandoning the baby outside

1:01

a barbecue restaurant. She had her baby

1:03

in a pram, which she, without thinking,

1:05

left outside, as she would go on

1:07

to say, is commonplace in her home

1:09

country. Let's just interrogate that

1:11

for just a moment. Is

1:14

it really commonplace in, not just Denmark

1:16

but Scandinavia, because that was the claim,

1:18

wasn't it? To leave your child outside

1:20

in the cold for an hour

1:22

whilst you have a meal? Well,

1:25

I actually looked up one of

1:27

the Danish tourism boards, main

1:30

websites, denmark.dk, and

1:32

they have all sorts of great information about

1:34

why life in Denmark is so magnificently wonderful.

1:37

You don't have to eat with your kids!

1:42

Actually, I'm there. That's the main one, yeah,

1:44

that's the homepage. They've got

1:46

a page that's answering the question, why are

1:48

Danes so happy? And it's got all sorts

1:50

of bluff and waffle and stuff about trusts

1:52

being an essential characteristic of Danish society,

1:54

and how everyone loves paying their taxes

1:56

and all that, but it ends with

1:58

the following. is also common

2:01

practice for parents to leave their

2:03

babies outside in their carriages to

2:05

nap even during the chilly Danish

2:07

winter, which I think must

2:09

have been an amendment based on the fact

2:11

that this whole story unfolds, surely. OK, so

2:13

what happened, Rebecca? She was having a drink

2:16

and left her kid outside. If

2:18

you look into contemporary reports, Sorenson

2:20

potentially wasn't quite as naive and

2:22

blameless as she would later come

2:24

to appear. Other patrons and waitstaff

2:26

had told her to bring the

2:28

girl inside and she had basically

2:30

just dismissed it, which, you know,

2:32

it's not necessarily their business. Anyway,

2:34

an hour later, the police arrive

2:36

and then it kind of goes

2:38

from a kind of humorous parenting

2:40

culture clash thing very quickly snowballs.

2:42

She and the baby's father's name

2:44

was Xavier Wardlow, are taken into

2:47

police custody where they remained for

2:49

36 hours. She strip searched, lived the

2:51

baby, is taken away by New York's

2:53

child services. That bit about her

2:55

being strip searched was the bit that A, I didn't

2:57

really understand, and B, I couldn't find any further information

2:59

on. I was like, what were they aiming to uncover,

3:01

the fact that she was squirreling other children about her

3:04

person? Yeah,

3:06

that was bizarre. And Wardlow as well later went

3:08

on to file a suit saying that he had

3:10

been abused by police as well. It very

3:13

quickly turned very dark and

3:15

strange. Yeah, because there

3:17

were lots of lawsuits, which is, I suppose,

3:19

as much of a New York convention as

3:21

arguably leaving your child outside in the winter

3:23

is a Scandinavian one, as

3:26

soon as the kid was reunited with the

3:28

Nets, Orange and the mother, they then followed

3:30

a sequence of events which ended up with

3:32

multiple lawsuits about this obviously very unfortunate incident,

3:34

but one that you kind of think if

3:36

someone was just completely blameless and had got

3:38

caught up in it as a Danish tourist

3:40

and it was just genuinely a case of,

3:43

oh, I didn't realise that's how things were done. It wouldn't

3:46

have ended up with at one point her trying to

3:48

sue the city for $20 million. Yeah, I

3:50

was trying to work out where that figure came from and she

3:53

didn't win it. Ultimately, she got something in the realms of 60,000.

3:56

Yeah, that's a huge sum to be asking for in

3:58

the first place. Well, the judge that's overturn that award

4:00

I understand Rebecca so she didn't even get a

4:02

60 grand and that in

4:05

2003 this was still

4:07

going on. She's written a book

4:09

about it as well which she

4:12

started a Kickstarter project to have it

4:14

translated into English. I mean to be

4:16

fair it did cause a lot of

4:18

comment at the time it was real

4:20

fodder for the newspapers on both side

4:22

of the Atlantic actually and it was

4:24

obviously portrayed very differently in Denmark her

4:26

case was described as a grotesque nightmare

4:28

every parent's worst fear etc etc whereas

4:31

the crazy thing about the US coverage is

4:33

how hard the commentators at the New York

4:35

Times and New York Post leaned into the

4:38

idea that New York was some kind of

4:40

hellhole. It was still a pretty

4:42

rough city I mean I actually looked up

4:44

at New York City's own tourism board. I

4:46

think they were probably very different to the

4:48

one from Copenhagen isn't it? Well, they start

4:50

out... Don't leave

4:52

your baby on the street and you're out of your

4:54

mind! That's page one. You gotta keep here, forget about

4:56

it, leave him inside! Actually

4:59

that is how the voice in my head

5:01

sounds. Yeah New York

5:03

is listening that's what we think you're all like. You're

5:06

basically all Robert De Niro or Jackie Mason. But

5:09

page one actually is kind of saying

5:11

New York is a really nice place and in fact

5:13

it says the truth is that New York City is

5:15

one of the safest big cities in the world. But

5:17

then it quickly goes on to say just to be

5:19

cautious you know you might want to consider the following

5:22

things. Don't go to Central Park

5:24

at night, stay away from areas of the city

5:26

that are empty and deserted late in the evening,

5:28

avoid taking the subway, try to look like a

5:30

local, don't look at your map, don't look at

5:32

buildings, don't look at anything. It just sort of

5:34

gets increasingly kind of panicked as it goes along.

5:37

Well I suppose it's when things go wrong they go very

5:39

wrong in a way that they're unlikely to in Denmark

5:41

I suppose that's the difference. And

5:44

as Sorensen said after is that US parents live

5:46

in fear and criticise American society for not having

5:48

tillids, but I'm not sure if I'm saying that

5:51

right. Literally just means trust

5:53

in Danish but it's more of a, you

5:55

have to describe the kind of broader phenomenon

5:57

of the fact that Danes have an

5:59

incredible sense of trust. incredibly high sense of trust

6:01

in society. Probably

6:04

because it's a relatively wealthy, homogenous

6:06

society. But there is that amount

6:08

of trust. People obviously leave their

6:10

babies outside, cafes, restaurants, et cetera.

6:12

But also roadside stalls are

6:14

really popular in Denmark because people believe

6:16

that customers will honor an honesty box,

6:18

that kind of thing. Which honestly definitely

6:20

does not exist in New York. Some

6:22

of the opinion rises said that you

6:24

can really tell the difference between the

6:26

attitudes in the country as well because

6:28

there's almost like a sort of possessive

6:30

way that the American journalists are writing

6:32

about children where they're saying, New York's

6:34

a city where people chain down their

6:36

garbage cans. Like how could you leave

6:39

a loose pram with a baby in

6:41

outside? Which is a really strange way

6:43

of looking at it. You know, like somebody would

6:45

be equally most hated. It's a big of a vision,

6:47

isn't it? To steal a child through someone's bin for

6:49

a bottle of bourbon. Yeah. So

6:52

what's the plan? Chain the baby carriage to

6:54

the lamp post and the baby

6:56

to the carriage? Chain the baby to the baby carriage. It's a

6:58

very complicated system of chaining. If it were

7:01

possible for us, let's take London as an

7:03

example as being a sort of cultural halfway

7:05

point, I guess, between Copenhagen and New York.

7:07

If it were possible to leave

7:09

a baby outside in the cold in

7:11

London when I went for, let's

7:13

take away the alcohol from this and make it

7:16

a bit less hard edged. A coffee, right? If

7:18

that was the cultural norm, would I welcome that

7:20

or not? I suppose the sense of it is

7:22

a kid wrapped

7:24

up for winter is wearing a lot of layers.

7:27

And actually, if they then fall asleep, you're then bringing them

7:29

into a coffee shop where there's not gonna be a big

7:31

amount of space for that buggy either. Like you have to

7:33

push past people and it takes up a load of room.

7:36

And then the kid's gonna overheat, which is much more

7:38

likely really to be dangerous for their health than someone

7:41

stealing them, which is quite unlikely. So then

7:43

you take their sort of wrong-pity thing off

7:45

and then they wake up and then they ruin

7:47

everyone's coffee. And the system is

7:49

a point of pride in Danish society. I

7:51

mean, At the time,

7:54

American magazines were incredulously publishing articles

7:56

and showing photos of Copenhagen cafes

7:58

with prams lined. Hi in a

8:00

little almost notes the American audience put him

8:02

things like can't eat a big old fashioned

8:04

proms the more popular in Denmark blogs as

8:06

a new nice of modern style stroller so

8:08

they wouldn't have been out of it. Look

8:11

into Cassez. that kind of sense that it

8:13

is true that there have been studies as

8:15

just that. babies d sleep better outside. Ancient

8:17

years ago you had me and my family

8:19

were in tell say when the Borders is

8:21

to and. Family We that's my

8:23

cousin's house after she just has one of

8:25

my baby cousins and we walked right up

8:27

front garden and a promise pot outside we

8:29

just bought walked past it we came in

8:31

and we will always the baby and she

8:33

said to do not see any that side

8:35

and she had the had the prom potro

8:37

outside you know in the Scottish weather scottish

8:39

summer but still noise I say. That would allow

8:41

you to. I mean, I'm just amazed that you

8:43

watch possibly be charged. it wasn't attached to anything

8:46

and you didn't think to make off with. My

8:49

to do with every been. You will proceed right right.

8:53

I mean aryan you have a baby. Have

8:55

you ever met her? Sleep outside was a

8:57

weird his place. you left your child slavery.

9:01

Assists I haven't time and it's funny

9:03

would say my wife's parents it from

9:05

as in Sussex and their next door

9:07

neighbor in this sort of bucolic can

9:10

see vivid like location. Is a big

9:12

advocate of just leaving the kids outside and

9:14

particularly since hit when they were crying she

9:16

preferred to just roll them outside and just

9:18

let them get on with who for their

9:21

benefit. Guess the fresh air says it will

9:23

She's yes he said that's the way they

9:25

become strong acceptance that we have intended to

9:27

go down that route. We've tended to be

9:29

a bit sort of helicopter parenting or whatever

9:31

and what's around baby daughter quite closely say

9:34

i don't this is gone to sleep and

9:36

he repeatedly unusual would gradually. Well.

9:38

Said the current baby is now eighteen months old

9:40

is pressure in the mind. I have taken him

9:42

for a walk in like you know you get

9:45

one of those like is basically a backpack but

9:47

it's like a rock cyclists design for babies to

9:49

go in your but when you walk he rounded

9:51

young as an urban about this have let him

9:53

sleep in a bad it is a bag at

9:55

a time for pets since I've been carrying him

9:57

in that bag for a walk and then. The

10:00

cuddly former think if it times perfectly with

10:02

why won't be his nap time. Imagine the

10:04

scene I'm and standing in the garden. We.

10:06

Both wrapped up more like a safe I bring

10:08

him and he's going to be to harden. I.

10:11

Have left him desolate. Lever on the

10:13

bag said that it stands up out

10:15

of my face as he drops out

10:17

the bus. Not as soon as I

10:19

said that stops, I've left him standing

10:21

up in the garden. Ensconced.

10:23

An abyss ssssss. But he's in my

10:25

private garden which is not overlooked by

10:28

anything and it is a purpose designs

10:30

item. And I'm checks on him

10:32

you know every five minutes on combat second cousin phone

10:34

on his face a mess. The risk is that the

10:36

concept of the back of movement bags it's full. Next

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week begins a day early, Specter

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exclusive episode every

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