Police have admitted officers "could have handled the situation differently" after they forced a teenage boy to deflate his bike tyres and left him to walk home not far from where Queensland boy Daniel Morcombe vanished.



Josh Maday’s mother is angry that the 15-year-old was left stranded near bushland three kilometres from his Sunshine Coast home as punishment for not wearing a helmet.



He was left about 15km from where Sunshine Coast teenager Daniel Morcombe vanished.



A coronial inquest is currently underway into the 13-year-old’s suspected abduction in December 2003.



Josh’s mother, Anne Dyer, said there was no doubt her son had done the wrong thing but police had handled it in a heavy-handed way.



‘‘With the whole Daniel Morcombe case in the air, you’d think they wouldn’t just leave him on the side of the road,’’ she told the Sunshine Coast Daily.



She said her son’s mobile phone was out of credit and he’d been forced to push his bike home.



‘‘I can understand them giving him a fine but I’ve never heard of a police officer deflating tyres,’’ she said.



Assistant Police Commissioner Ross Barnett said officers who found the boy riding without a helmet at Sippy Downs on Saturday could have handled the situation differently.



He said the officers had been trying to avoid fining the boy, and at the time considered it appropriate to order him to deflate his tyres and make his own way home.



''... But on reflection they probably could have done something a little bit differently,’’ Mr Barnett told ABC radio today.



He said police had not simply abandoned the boy but had also gone to his home to alert his mother about what had happened.



She wasn’t home but the officers briefed an adult sibling of the teenager and left a card asking the mother to contact them, Mr Barnett said.



He said that, in hindsight, the officers may have considered dropping the boy home with his bike.



‘‘That certainly was an option that perhaps on reflection might have been a better course,’’ he said.



He said police were ‘‘keenly aware’’ of community sensitivity about child protection and safety in the wake of Daniel Morcombe’s disappearance.



‘‘All the police are very, very acutely aware of the community sensitivity in that area,’’ he said.



Comment was being sought from Daniel’s parents Denise and Bruce Morcombe, who have set up a foundation in their son’s honour to promote child safety.



AAP