DS and his friend approached by a man in a car.....leave it alone, or report it?

[LackaDAISYcal]

DS, 7, was out playing with his friend who is 10 outside his friend's house. Apparently a car drew up and the driver wound the window down to speak to them, asking DS's friend "Do you hit your little brother? My DS hits his little brother all the time" DS's friend just said "he isn't my little brother", they went into the friend's garden and the man drove off.

Not sure what to do about it. I'm going to speak to the friend and his mum and see what happened, as I appreciate my DS can be a bit hairbrained at times so am taking it with a pinch of scepticism. I'm also not usually one to worry about stuff, but winding down car windows to talk to boys in the street seems a bit of an odd thing to do, especially as we live in a small cul de sac so it's not as if it's passing traffic.

otoh, if this has happened elsewhere as well......

Check it out with friend and Mum and see how she feels about it. Personally, if you establish the veracity of the story, I'd report it. There's not a lot the police can do with it on its own, but you don't know what else may have happened or has also been reported.

Well, it probably is nothing but perhaps report it as sometimes these incidents build up to show a wider picture.
My sister used to work in child protection for the police and several different reports of a seedy man on a bus came together to show a picture of someone who was perhaps building up to more serious misdeamenors - he is now banned from public transport and on the sex offenders register.
This is an extreme example I know but it does seem odd that someone is randomly going out of his way to engage in conversation with children he does not know.

I would report to your community police. Might turn out it's been happening a few times in your area.

I'd report it. You'd feel awful if something happened and you hadn't.

I was victim of a flasher when I was 7, who had approched other kids but who's parents hadn't reported it.

definitely report it, you don't know if something else is happening and they're looking for descriptions of car and bloke etc.

Please report it!

When i was 14 a man pulled up next to me ad asked the time, then he tried to drag me through the window, the smae night he killed another girl.

Well worth reporting it as this guy had been asking the time to loads of girls around the area.

It turned into a very large publicised case.

yes report
it is weird behaviour

no harm in reporting it

It's a strange thing to do , isn't it? - Pull up and ask a boy if he hits his younger brother. It's as if he was making a preliminary contact.

That's horrible Titsalina, how scarey.

Can the 10 year old describe the man in any way, would he know the make of car by any chance or remember the colour?

Speak to the other mum.

Report!
Next time the driver may get lucky!!

please report it

I would report as well. It is one thing to stop and ask for direction but asking "do you hit your little brother?" really iffy and definitely weird!

sorry, had to go off and deal with small children.

how horrible titsalina and devonsmummy.

thanks for that; I'll speak to the other boy and then probably call the community team.

quick update. I spoke to the other boy's dad and to both boys and DS was telling it exactly like it happened. So we have a description of the car and the fact that there were two men in the car, one older and the other a teenager.

could be something and nothing, but we are both going to report it to the community police team just to be on the safe side. If it's nothing, then no harm done but I would feel awful if something happened to another child.

thanks

Well I called the police community team who said I had to talk to the centralised incident call report centre and put me through, where I spoke to a lovely person (not even sure they were a police officer) who clearly thought I was barking mad and getting my knickers in a twist about nothing.

She didn't even ask me where I lived or when it happened although she said she would log it onto the system

Ah well, I tried.

really?

that's disappointing

I think you did the right thing though

How unreassuring. At least you have done all you could. But it doesn't instil confidence in the system......

well at least the call centre was local and not an offshore one like my bank

Do you have a police station near you LackaDaisycal? I'd probably drop in there when you're out and about and report it to the front desk - I think it's much more likely to be taken seriously and they'll probably know if there have been other reports.

flipping heck.

i agree with makedoandmend go to the local police station and tbh i would also tell them that you tried to notify the call centre and tell them what happened with that. maybe the woman who answered the phone wasn't a parent and clearly did not understand the horrendous possibilities?

Your ds and his friend did the right thing, so I'd praise them. And talk about what they would do if it ever happened again - maybe NSPCC or Kidscape might have some advice? And about alerting the cops given the call centre wasn't much, um, cop? (Sorry, couldn't resist!)