Charlotte daycare director wants name cleared after child abuse charges

CHARLOTTE — A daycare director is standing by her workers ahead of a court hearing Wednesday.

The hearing comes after a Live Photo from earlier this year led to outrage and charges. It shows kids piling into a car without car seats.

Now, the Midwood Learning Academy wants to clear their name. They said Tuesday in a press conference they want to reopen the facility and have the charges dropped.

But the mom of a child who was in the back of the car said she stands by the facility losing its license.

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The Live Photo shows kids, allegedly from Midwood Learning Academy, sprawled across a car. The kids weren’t in seatbelts and the car takes off with the door open.

Kids who attended Midwood Learning Academy A daycare in Charlotte’s Plaza Midwood neighborhood was shut down by state health officials after allegations of child neglect.

The photo was taken in February by a family friend of one of the kids in the car. She said she saw the kids at a park unsupervised and tried to step in.

Security video shows the woman trying to confront the daycare workers before the car took off.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services suspended the daycare’s license, and Director Leslye Torrence was charged with six counts of misdemeanor child abuse.

Torrence’s mother and co-director is speaking out for the first time, saying Torrence wasn’t in the car that day and that the workers took off in that manner because they felt the children were in danger.

“I apologize, I am very apologetic about what happened. But then I also look at cause and effect,” Shirley Torrence said.

One parent who had a child in the car that day said she stands by the daycare workers.

“Your first instinct is to go, so that door was going to be open,” Danielle Brown said. “Them kids were not going to be strapped in, you’re going to zoom off. So if you count that as reckless — count it what you count it, but there she’s getting the kids to safety.”

But the mother who Channel 9′s Hannah Goetz talked to earlier this year said her stance still hasn’t changed. She said her child was in the car that day, pictured laying across others laps and was put in danger.

“I just feel very strongly about these individuals not being allowed to work with children, or run a daycare,” she said. “The negligence was extreme.”

(WATCH BELOW: Director charged with child abuse after state shuts down Charlotte daycare)