Dad Left 5-Year-Old Under Alexa's Watch As He Went Bar Hopping

A dad who left an Alexa on to babysit his young daughter as he chugged a beer or two ended up losing her custody.

Amazon's savvy AI-powered voice service "Alexa" can be trusted with tasks like setting an alarm or making to-do lists, but surely not minding a baby.

But that's what the callous dad did--he left his 5-year-old child home alone and under the watch of the device which he operated through a phone app, Lad Bible reported.

In his trial this week, the 30-year-old unidentified man admitted in court that he left his child alone at home at 8 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2022, to visit bars.

Officials learned of his misconduct only at 2 a.m. the next morning when a neighbor was alerted by screams coming from the house's garden. Turned out, the man strangled his new girlfriend in the middle of an argument before they "had to be separated" by the arriving deputies, a police spokesperson told the BBC.

When deputies arrived, the man confessed to leaving his daughter alone with no one but Alexa as he visited a "string of pubs" in the town of Powys in Wales, U.K.

The prosecutor told the court that the man and his new girlfriend were known to each other for the last seven months. "The female had been drinking on the day and he was with her. She went out about 8 pm as did he. The child was left in the flat," prosecutor Stephen Davies told the court.

"The female had been drinking on the day and he was with her. She went out about 8pm as did he. The child was left in the flat," Davies said, as per Ladbible.

"They went to a number of pubs and she says she can't remember anything until he was strangling her. She doesn't recall how she got home.

"The police were called and marks were noticed on her neck. She said the child had been left in the house for a short period of time."

The man was arrested for strangling his partner and was also charged with child neglect, and was slapped with a 12-month sentence, BBC reported.