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AIBU?

To think a large amount of attempted abductions are just the result of over active imaginations....

106 replies

Pantone363 · 03/02/2015 21:56

Possibly I am. Just pondering yet another report of a local child being approached on the way to school and nearly abducted.

Reports usually posted on FB and involve a car stopping and child being called over or a van driving past slowly and then driving off fast.

Today's report is a teenage girl who fought off a man wearing a balaclava driving a big black van. On a very busy stretch of road during rush hour. Which nobody else saw. Police are investigating according to the email from the school.

IABU to think that a lot of these reports are products of over active imaginations, attention seeking or the result of fear mongering around peadophiles? Or are there actually monthly attempted abductions of small children by strangers?

OP posts:

Report

Fanjango · 03/02/2015 23:06

I think you must live near me! That information was sent to our school via the school watch alert system. Facebook copies were shared to alert others.

rinabean · 03/02/2015 23:07

I'm not thick either btw. I don't run screaming every time I walk past traffic lights because the real problem is my bizarre phobia of slowing cars. And I do give people directions and so on. And I know what happened to me and I know it must happen to others and I know that sometimes those men must be successful.

ILovePud · 03/02/2015 23:11

spot on rinabean.

whothehellknows · 03/02/2015 23:17

I'd agree with the previous poster who theorized that some of the "van slowing down" incidents were related to sexual harassment as opposed to attempted abduction. In my younger days, I twice had men pull over and proposition me for sex / drugs and then expose themselves before driving off. It was grim. Not an attempted abduction, but still not something I want my daughter exposed to. This shit does happen.

HouseWhereNobodyLives · 03/02/2015 23:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NeedABumChange · 03/02/2015 23:19

I totally understand what you are saying and agree OP.

Attention seeking girl at school seemed to be nearly dragged into a car every other week. Always had some story, never got seen by the CCTV oddly. Made all the parents turn into loons though until there was clear evidence she was making them all up.

People can't even ask for directions these days. All the children have been taught to run away from any cars that stop anywhere near them.

amarmai · 03/02/2015 23:21

so what are you advocating 363? Don't listen to our children's concerns? Don't proactively protect our children. Don't beleive what they say happened to them? Again what is your agenda 363?

Pantone363 · 03/02/2015 23:33

Why do I need an agenda beyond discussing the issue?

OP posts:

SistersOfPercy · 03/02/2015 23:42

There were about a dozen in the space of half an hour in our city a few years ago if you believed Facebook. It was amusing really as the guy must have driven some kind of delorean as he was covering 30 miles in minutes trying to abduct kids all across town. The story was embellished more with every 'sighting'.

Of course when pointed out to the by now angry mob that there was more than a reasonable chance this was bollocks there was uproar.
'We jus wan keep our kids safe hun, no harm in sharin!'

In the end our local police issued a statement confirming it was bollocks and they all shrank away.

amarmai · 03/02/2015 23:43

what issue?

Fanjango · 04/02/2015 00:14

It may be slightly off point but the area this occurred is generally a very quiet area. It is on the outskirts of the town, a busy road but no cameras. To my knowledge this is the first alert raised by a school in this area so it's not like there are children panicking at every car . It may be a hoax, but I'd rather be warned just in case. But no it won't change my behaviour. We still have 2 unsolved murders that occurred the opposite side of the town and life has got back to normal fairly easily. The town doesn't suffer from a barrage of false claims. Better to be safe than sorry where child safety is concerned

Pantone363 · 04/02/2015 00:24

Fanjango, have you seen the actual email from the school? From what I've seen on FB there is a screenshot of a email (sender not shown) detailing the attack.

Nothing on the school website, police website, police twitter or any local newspapers.

But I agree everyone is still quite on edge after the murders.

OP posts:

Fanjango · 04/02/2015 00:32

Yes. I got the message from school watch direct from my primary.

Fanjango · 04/02/2015 00:34

I agree nothing seems to be on local news which is why people have been sharing it on FB. I'm actually closer to the murder sites but I went to the school in question and I've never heard of anything like it in the area before.

SantasLittleMonkeyButler · 04/02/2015 00:43

Does it matter though?

I would rather be warned than not TBH. If there's nothing in it, then fine. If there is, also fine.

Fanjango · 04/02/2015 00:53

It doesn't really matter, unless there is a proliferation of these sorts of stories in which case the chances of the perceived threat level being raised is aid concern I merely pointed out that this is not a normal occurrence in the area to show that the chances of it being fear caused by previous accusations is low and that, as a previous poster had suggested, the fact that there is no chance of curb proof does not make it suspect as the area has very little in the way of cameras .

Fanjango · 04/02/2015 00:54

Sorry a random letter has obliterated my punctuation making that rather hard to read. It's late

Birdsgottafly · 04/02/2015 03:45

Having worked with perpetrators of Child Abuse (of all types) and read/researched Perpetrator cases, we should remind ourselves that they report how they carried out early "test" scenarios and have failed attempts of abduction or sexual assaults.

If you went on to "Rapist/Abusers" forums, they advocate "testing" strategies by trying them out to see how they pan out, not to be successful, to start with.

These websites get discovered and closed, sometimes there are arrests, but there is a big sharing of "tips" and stories.

Just like some Men enjoy the power to verbally abuse Women in the street, these Men enjoy seeing/promoting fear in Children/Parents.

I was mugged, at knife point, after using a local cash machine. There had been three muggings in two weeks, the Bank had done all it could to stop it going public, so local people spread it. We've had shootings etc go unreported, so the lack of a Police involvement and reporting, means nothing.

Actions can be misconstrued, but there are more offenders about than most of the general public realise.

HouseWhereNobodyLives · 04/02/2015 05:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Allice · 04/02/2015 05:51

I live in the same area as you, in fact my kids go to a school that's off of that road. I saw it on facebook earlier today, was just a statement from the school.
I kind of agree with you, there was a alleged man taking photos at a school i worked at a couple of years ago, only 1 child saw this and yet another child saw someone every day for a week.

SummerHouse · 04/02/2015 06:19

I don't know why people are giving you biscuits. YANBU. In my county, in the last 10 years or so, there have been no child abductions (not counting when a child is taken by another parent or relative). There have been hundreds of alleged attempt abductions. Where there is one report you can be sure that sparks further reports in the same area. Every child should be taken seriously and believed but when there is evidence that the child is not telling the truth the police are left is a difficult position.

AggressiveBunting · 04/02/2015 06:32

This is fairly inevitable because schools will always want to stay on the safe side- tell parents to be careful when there's no need to be- job done. Dont warn parents and then there's an abduction- deep shit. It's why spamming/ hoaxing email and FB chains work so well.

You know that there's a 99.9% likehood that Bill Gates wont give all his money to Oxfam if you get a million likes.............but what if he did??

There are also a lot of attentions seekers around- where I live they are obsessed by attempted abductions by Chinese mainlanders- "be careful because today a Chinese tourist looked at my baby", "OMG hun, be careful. He could have abducted them." "I know. I'm never going to that Starbucks again." Arggh.

OnBlueDolphinStreet · 04/02/2015 06:37

for you OP.

Ok, I'm long in the tooth, but I can think of 3 potential abduction incidents and one actual sexual assault by a stranger in daylight (right by busy road and no one stopped!) that have happened to me.

Thats not to mention van/car slowing down and abuse shouting. Just for walking or jogging on the pavement in daylight on my own.

hairymonkey · 04/02/2015 06:45

Some bloke tried to get me into his car on a rainy day when I was a teenager, I wasn't hysterical, just very frightened. I didn't tell anyone at the time, but often thought I should have.
This thread makes me glad I didn't, happy to have avoided being branded an attention seeking liar, and I loved attention as a teenager. l

AggressiveBunting · 04/02/2015 07:10

Ok, but to counter that, when I was about 9, me and my sister used to pretend this guy in our road was a murderer (not true) and used to scream and run off if we saw him. We also used to tell our friends he'd been to jail for killing a kid (not true) and that he tried to kill our dog (not true). Imagine if FB had existed then- only a matter of time before some parent sent outr a warning about the bloke at no 52.

Kids make stupid stuff up. That isnt to say that all abduction reports are fake but many of them probably are.

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