A WARNING has been issued to parents after two Keighley incidents in which young children were inadvertently locked in cars.

Keighley firefighters were called out to Belgrave Road yesterday and had to break a window to gain entry to the vehicle.

And a crew attended a second incident, in Ripley Street, Riddlesden, today to free a child.

In both cases, the vehicles had self-locked, with the keys inside, leaving the parents stranded outside.

"Self-locking mechanisms can activate very quickly and parents need to be aware of this when they have young children in the car and they are outside the vehicle even briefly," says Ahsan Ali, watch commander at Keighley fire station.

"Clearly when we attend such incidents the safety and welfare of the child is paramount and we may have to cause damage to the vehicle in order to gain access."