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

[Pantone363]

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?

YANBU as far as fb is concerned. 99% of those round robin type posts are utter bollocks.

Round here it's usually gypsies in a white van trying to nick horses, but also all those "fb are trying to steal your private life" and I'm afraid to say those little kids in hospital needing transplants or whatever.

All totally made up.

I'm not saying children shouldn't be believed. I'm saying that children do tend to blow "scary" things (like the scenario with the van pulling up above) out of proportion. And that before it is reported as an attempted abduction their version of events should be investigated

The trouble with this is ^^ is if you don't take it seriously evidence could be lost. So police get a call about this and it happened just now, lots of officers sent to look for van,speak to victim. If it turns out to be nothing just a bit of time waster, if it is something there is a much better chance of finding the van and the person. If they investigate every other option first then there is no chance of finding the van or car and person.

• time wasted not waster

OP is not saying children shouldn't be believed. Nor is it unreasonable to take action, although perhaps the fact someone has been seen in the area doesn't actually make it less safe. So if you wouldn' let your dc walk to school after one such report, should you at all?

However I can count on the fingers of one finger (!) the number of "police warnings of attempted abductions" that have come up on fb in the last 5 years that haven't been also on hoax slayer or a similiar site.

Two cases spring to mind:
A few years ago, an official letter from the police came out stating that a young boy (aged 10yo) had been approached on the way home from school and attempted to get into a white van. We had quite detailed descriptions and look and sound of men.
Turned out what had actually happened as viewed by an adult (I know her and she's very sesnible) was: Boy was walking home from school in floods of tears. This adult looked out of the window and saw him, and was considering going to check he was okay, when a work van passing also saw him, and stopped, wound the window down and called across "Are you okay?" Boy nodded, and one said to him "Do you know where you're going?" He nodded again.
Workvan pulled in several houses down the road at the house they'd been working at for the last week. Boy ran off, got home still in tears, and told his mum that he'd been spoken to by men in a white van, and she assumed everything else.

Other one When I was first walking home by myself (all the way across the village) I came home one day and told dm that someone had tried to get me in the car. I described them thoroughly, and it was only when dm went to pick up the phone to tell the police, that I stop, looked at her in a confused sort of way and said "But I'm telling you what I would do, it didn't really happen."
I don't remember that, so I don't remember why I did it, but it obviously does happen.

To people asking, the stats are genuine and by strangers. Lots more info here:

www.childabduction.org.uk/index.php/the-facts

It's important to be vigilant but it's also important to keep the risk in perspective. I will neither call U nor NU on this one and it's true that social media encourages the spreading of information be it true or not true. The true stuff is important as it makes us aware of heightened risk; the fake stuff muddies the waters. Problem is, it's the same source "Facebook" so how do we determine the difference? Over reacting to a fake threat is dangerous because then, when a real threat occurs, we're desensitised to it, or just write it off as another hoax.

People fixate on stories of attempted abduction because it's reassuring to think of stranger danger and threats you can avoid.

Distracts them from the reality, which is that the majority of child abuse is perpetuated by people known to the victim.

All good points, it may not be true. This morning it has been posted by Essex police on the gazette online

If a report is made to the police it is obviously taken seriously and the schools warned. That doesn't mean it actually happened. If you dig a little into most of the FB "shared" stuff they tur out to be hoaxes. Like the don't stop for a car seat in the road and check the back of your car for rapists tell all your woman friends things.

Interestingly, when my dd was younger it was always Asian men in a white van. Now it's Eastern European looking men in a white van.........

PeppermintCrayon

People fixate on stories of attempted abduction because it's reassuring to think of stranger danger and threats you can avoid.

Distracts them from the reality, which is that the majority of child abuse is perpetuated by people known to the victim.

Sadly true. There was an article a while ago and the author pointed out that statistically, it was safer to let children go outside to play than (as we now do) keeping them indoors, since indoors - indeed at home - was where there was the highest chance of abuse happening.

We once went to visit some relatives, my cousin was about 7 at the time and playing out with friends so we stopped to say hello and then drove the 50m to the house.

Her mother had just had 3 phone calls from neighbours telling her about the stranger talking to her daughter.

Article here

The police have said it's an 11 year old boy that has made the accusation. Strangely a girls school in the same street chose not to pass the school watch message on to their parents and social media alerted them to it instead!
Article here
m.gazette-news.co.uk/news/11769711.Masked_man_attempts_to_drag_child_into_blacked_out_van/?ref=

Apologies for double post, my app seems to playing up.

This reminds me of something i read on Facebook a while back, somebody had took a photo of a letter and posted it on fb, this letter was warning people not to flash your car lights at cars that where driving along with no lights on (to remind them to put lights on) as it was some sort of gang initiation, as soon as you flash your lights you become a target.

This was being shared by people from all over my area, people were warning others not to drive at night etc

It was only when i took a good look at the letter i realised that the "gangs" where the bloods and the crips. I'm pretty bloody sure them gangs don't venture into rural Cumbria and the letter was probably circulated around LA

People actually believed they where going to be shot.

Anyway, that's got nowt to do with this but it reminded me of some of the shite you read on fb

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2638708/Faces-Britains-lost-children-Missing-People-launches-The-Big-Tweet-campaign.html

140 000 children go missing in uk each year.

No i dont think its over active imagination, if anything we underplay abuse and possible abusers in this country.

It was only when i took a good look at the letter i realised that the "gangs" where the bloods and the crips. I'm pretty bloody sure them gangs don't venture into rural Cumbria and the letter was probably circulated around LA

awful for la but hilarious for cumbira

BTW I had lots of near brushes when I was younger, lost count of times saw man wanking in bushes on way home from school, seen flasher, been approached by dogy man on a beach wanting to take photos of me in under wear...been approached by odd man by river, and offered sweets at motorway services when very young...and lots more to add....looked out window at home whislt cleaning upstairs one, and saw man driving round with a t shirt on and nothing else...

I have also heard the scream of a woman being attacked in near by alley way.

not my imagination.

We had a spate of them in our neighbourhood late last year, roughly 12 in the space of 5 weeks.

The reports came directly from the school. They were not described as attempted abductions but as children being approached by strangers. The descriptions varied slightly but had similarities, too. In all cases boys were being targeted at busy times.

No child was abducted and no suspects ever caught.

But we have had spates like this before and I recall 2 in which children were grabbed but got away. Again, reports came from the school and were also written up in our local papers.

Equally we have had cases, not in our neighbourhood but in our city, of children getting upset by strangers only for it to turn out to be entirely innocent. For example, a child waiting in the rain was approached by a couple of young men in a car. The child ran away, very upset. The men recognised themselves from ensuing media reports and went to police. They had been concerned for the child's safety and stopped to ask if he needed help.

It's a shame this thread has got blurry with talk about the children / teens as unreliable witnesses.

That's really not the issue here. The issue is the Facebook rumour mill, which spreads hysteria and exaggeration at incredible speeds.

In this digital age, we need to focus on how we can ascertain the credibility of information, especially when it's so important.

I don't set much store by Facebook panic spreading or whipping up some mass hysteria or mob rule.

I do listen to police reports and messages circulated by schools.

It's not the children that are the problem here, it's the adults.

Another one agreeing with peppermint. Most of the people on my newsfeed who share things of that nature are also guilty of sharing those, "like and I'll be cured of cancer" pictures or "win an iPad courtesy of dodgyshit.com!". Or inviting me to play FarmVille. I don't want to say they're gullible buuuuuut they kind of are, for the most part, and liable to feed off each other. I don't want to say their children are lying, because I don't think there's any mischief there, just that it snowballs and becomes embellished.

You can say, "better safe than sorry, what harm does it do?", but the reality is that certain elements of the media perpetuate the idea that there are paedos lurking around every corner, ready to snatch your kids. Whilst it's obviously a good idea to listen to kids and take them seriously (and reporting to the relevant authorities), putting out warnings like this carte blanche only increases the distrust we have in men, let's face it, and their interactions children when in reality they're most at risk from people they already know and trust. They're putting their efforts in the wrong place. Tell the police and school, if there's a pattern or theme there'll be an official warning or notification.

The news reports are always vague and involve white vans doing not much but driving past. Here white vans are common in the streets as postal couriers drive them, stop often etc.

mobile.abc.net.au/news/2009-05-16/man-in-white-van-an-urban-myth/1685570

I think there's a boogey man factor with seeing a white van.

Anyone recall the "bogus social worker" scare(s) ?

^ I agree with this. And it does matter because if genuine alerts are drowned out in a sea of fake frothing. Either parents will become blase and fail to react appropriately or children will live in terror of something that is actually pretty rare (unlike the sexual harrassment of teenage girls but that's another thread).

"140 000 children go missing in uk each year. "

How many abducted by men in a white van while on the way to school?