Was I unreasonable to not give this woman back her child? Is DH now being a nob?

[NewToAllThis12345]

Hiya,

Just looking for some advice.

A year ago, I was at a train station, it was relatively busy.

A small child, who was around 4, was very close to the edge. I could not see his parents around at all. I had to go over to him, he definitely didn't seem too safe.

He said that he wasn't sure where his mum was - mum.

A man then approached us, thanking me and saying it was his child, saying his name. I asked the boy if that was his name; it was. I then asked if he knew the man, he then said "where is my mum?"

I was very confused and unsure what to do. I said to the man that I am going to have to say something to the station, as I want to make sure he is safe.

I went to a security guard. He told me to just hand the child over to 'the dad'. However, this boy never said to me that he was his dad, he just kept going on about his mum.

I said that I think it'll be best if I call the police, they said an officer would be there in half an hour.

The 'Dad' then snatched the child out of my hand and said that they were going to be late for the show. I tried to explain to the guard who said that he was obviously the dad as no one else had claimed to be his parents. I tried to run after them, but the he told me to just let them go and stop bugging them.

The police later arrived and said they would follow it up.

I do not know the outcome, I had to do a statement, but that was all.

Was I unreasonable? It's just, DH now makes jokes with our DC when we are out, saying I'm not allowed to hold their hand because he doesn't know if they're my kids, fucking annoying stuff like that.

Amen to BoomBooms comment.

You did the right thing, and exactly what I what have done.

KeepItDown that video is terrifying.

Mumoftwo. No, I was using "giving birth to" to mean giving birth to.

OP said "If the man was an uncle/friend, why did he say the boy was his?" suggesting, I assume, that she thought it was odd to refer to the child as his if he was 'only an uncle/friend'. I don't think it's odd at all. My point was that you don't have to have given birth to a child to be able to describe them as yours. I don't care whether the OP squeezed her kids out of her fanjo or found them under a gooseberry bush, or any other scenario you care to think of. The point was that anyone with parental responibility, either permanent or temporary, might, at that moment, reasonably describe a child as his or hers. Therefore, the OP's response to me was odd and I think it is fair enough to assume she hadn't understood.

You did the right thing. Something felt off about the situation to you and you did something about it. Even if it was perfectly legitimate you tried to stand up for a small child. Too many people turn a blind eye to problems.

You were trying to do the right thing, whether right or wrong.

Your dh is being a complete tool.

boomboom whilst that might be upsetting for your dh you n3ed to way the risks. It is more likely that a man seen with a child is responsible for them but if they are not the consequences are potentially awful.

Since Jamie Bulger if I see a child with someone they don't look certain about I don't stop them but I do always give them a second look just in case to see which way they go etc.

I don't want to be that person who is saying "I wish I had said something..." and I don't want any child to be that child.

I lost my DD once. Hundreds of people were looking for her (anyone of whom could have bedn the wrong person I suppose). A woman and child brought her back and tbf nobody asked (including the police) who I was but as I was frantically running about looking for her in a total state and she is the spit of me I don't suppose they had to but if they had I would have happily waited because I was absolutely terrified someone had taken her.

Weigh the risks

The situation was a minefield. The OP erred on the side of caution. There was no perfect answer but the OP decided to put her concern for the child's interest first.

I think you did the right thing too. You put the child's welfare first which is all you can do in this sort of situation. Places like train stations are a nightmare if children walk off.

I was in a shop at a mainline station and there was a mum and child in the queue behind me (he was about 3). As she was paying he bolted out of the shop past me into the main concourse, out of sight of the tills. I grabbed him and brought him back to the shop so his mum could get him and finish paying. It would have been equally easy for someone to grab him and be out of the station within a minute.

Your DH on the other hand is a twat to keep bringing it up.

I think you done the right thing. Last week in my local shopping centre, DD(4) was playing in a pirate ship thing, we were on a bench on one side, she ran out of the other side and started panicking.
I could her hear crying but wasn't sure if she was inside it or had wandered off. I looked around then saw her holding a woman's hand, crying her eyes out.

All I could manage to say was "she's mine!" The woman actually apologized to me for holding her hand but she saw DD was lost so just grabbed her. I kept thanking her over and over again, I was so grateful someone noticed and was trying to find me.

DD didn't say there's my mum, I could of been anyone really. Everyone reacts differently in those situations.

Small I agree the consequences have to be weighed. I'm saying that our prejudices sometimes make it worse for children and we need to watch that too. Because it really isn't good for our kids if they grow up thinking people don't trust their fathers. The consequences for Jamie Bulger were horrendous, but those cases are such a tiny number, while the less devastating impact of fathers being vilified for being with their children happens everyday to many children.

Your story is typical of how women are treated when they are with their children. And you probably wouldn't have minded much with a one off. But think about what it would feel like if often when you were out in public and your child wandered a few feet away, you had to put up with suspicion. If you had been stopped before from catching a bus or train. If it felt like your love for your child was questioned, in front of your child, whenever you didn't have your husband with you.

It's a bit like the impact on mothers who are given a hard time for breastfeeding or any of the other multitude of things women are judged for in public. It can put them off doing what's in their children's best interests and, at the least, puts additional stress on them when they already have plenty. None of this is good for our children.

So yes, you need to weigh the risks, I'm pointing out that there is a weight on the other side of the scale too. Erring in the side of caution isn't cost free.

hmmm its a strange one. the exact same thing happenned to me a couple of years ago and it was much more obvious that the man was his dad - he came running over, in a panic, child ran into his arms, he swept him up and started thanking everyone etc - he really looked like a Dad that had been panicking that he's lost his small child.

You were in the right.

Apropos to this thread, when I was a young child, my mother always said that children must never have "child's name" personalised jewellery or outerwear, because it makes it too easy for a predator to convince the child that they're a safe adult. "Are you "name"? Your mum/dad sent me to get you. Let me take you to him/her". Obviously, it also makes it easy for a predator to feign a relationship to concerned strangers.

boomboom fair point. Although I suspect your dh might react more like the man above to a lost child. Especially lost in a dangerous place like a train station.

I forgot to add the day I lost DD they had both refused to wear reins even though it was a busy place.
After the event I was walking holding their hands and they were trying to break free going "stop stop you are hurting me" ( I wasn't) "where are we going?" Because they wanted loose to watch performers in the crowd and no way was I letting them out of my sight.

I was a bit worried in case people thought I was taking them but I passed the same two police officers who had attended earlier incident and the officers burst out laughing.

The police contact school and SS as a matter of routine now. They apologised to me for having to but I said it was fine.

I have never questioned a kid for being out with their dad. I am an lp so if they are with their dad he has them alone but I will look twice if the kid looks confused or upset or reluctant whilst also bearing in mind mine do that deliberately to show me up.

I think OP was not BU and her DH is being U.
It is fair enough for him to say once but to keep on and on is mean.

Suspect the man in question was embarrassed he hadn't been paying proper attention next to train platform and/or didn't have much experience.

^man above
I mean foragogo post not man in OP.

Your dh is being a knob about it. It does sound concerning, I would think that the child was with him, but that he doesn't like the bloke - possible abuse/neglect. Losing a child at a train station is terrible, and you'd think the guy would be panicking and shouting his name, running around looking for him. It's weird that he just slunk up and said 'he's mine'. No wonder it didn't 'feel right'. Also, normally a lost child will be happy and relieved when someone finds them, whether it's the dad, uncle, step dad or whatever, shouting their name (or "daddy") running up and cuddling etc. Hiding behind you sadly asking about his mum screams to me "I don't want to be alone with this guy" or "I don't know/trust him". Poor kid.

Small That's very true. The DH is BU to keep on with the digs, especially in front of their own kids. And I don't know if the OP was BU or not, because I wasn't there and I certainly don't take the position that no one should ever be suspicious of a person who claims to be the carer of a young child.

That video was so obviously faked.

I am boggling at the amount of people who say you did the right thing! You basically kidnapped a child and refused to give him back to his parent, and called the police.

You're quite mad, and so are all the people on here telling you it was ok to do what you did.

How is stopping to help a child left alone in a dangerous place kidnapping?

Despite initially saying the OP did the right thing, I'm now inclined to agree with Tigger.

There is a level of hysteria on this thread which is quite bizarre (Snooze's post is a fine example)

• There is a child at a train station who is apparently fine, if perhaps a little close to the edge of the platform. We must assume he is fine as the OP does not describe him as crying or distressed.

• The OP doesn't see his parents around. Hardly surprising since she doesn't know his parents from Adam - how would she know who she was looking for?

• No sooner had she approached the little boy than a man came along and said he was with him. Given the speed at which the man arrived on the scene, it can be assumed he was already watching the child (because he was with him) and went over to him as he was being approached by a stranger. It is hardly surprising that he wasn't running around screaming about his lost child since he hadn't actually lost him.

• The child doesn't run up to his 'dad', overcome with relief at being found, because he wasn't actually lost.

The OP was right to approach the child she felt was in danger, and was right to be slightly questioning of the person who came to collect him. Having established the man knew the child's name, she should have asked the child "Who is this?", and established whether the child knew the man. If she was very concerned about why the child was asking for his mum, she should have asked the man why that was.

If the man had kidnapped the child, do you really think he would then let that child wander round a train station to be intercepted by members of the public? If the man was an opportunistic kidnapper who saw a lone child at a train station, then why did the OP not later see the distraught parents running around trying to find their lost child?

Stop making a mountain out of a molehill.

I maintain OP did the right thing.

Not because everyone's a child thief. But because children are vulnerable and child thieves do exist. Because the child can't be expected to take responsibility, so the rest of us need to be cautious on their behalf. Because it's better to be careful than sorry.

10,000 refugee children are missing in Europe.

Mytam Phan and Thuy Dung Thi Tran, both 14, were among the nine children found hiding in the back of a lorry in Sussex in July last year. By the next day, eight had gone missing. Mytam and Thuy disappeared in the night from their foster placement without shoes, extra clothes or any money. They have not been heard of since.

A child is reported missing every three minutes in the UK. There is no centralised database, although they are now being built, and some police forces are still very slack on recording disappearances.

• 1,141 child abduction and kidnapping offences were recorded in 2014/15 by police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• There were large increases in non-parental child abductions (47 per cent) and child kidnapping (18 per cent), though police-recorded parental child abduction decreased slightly. It is likely that many parental child abductions are not reported to, or recorded by, police.
• The explanation for these increases may – at least in part – lie in changes to police crime-recording practices. Some incidents which may previously have gone unrecorded may now be recorded as a crime.
• Police force initiatives to tackle child sexual exploitation may also be having a sizeable effect on trends in recorded crime, as might efforts to intervene in forced marriage and domestic abuse. Without further research it is not possible to say whether the underlying incidence of child abduction and kidnapping is increasing.
• There is enormous variation between regions and police forces in the number, and rate, of child abduction and kidnapping offences. A relatively small number of police forces have recorded a large proportion of the increase in offences.

Official website

"PACT’s analysis of 2011/12 crime data suggested that approximately 200 attempted abductions by a stranger were recorded by the police in the UK¹. In addition, in roughly 50 cases a stranger succeeded in taking a child; some of these abductions result in sexual assault. Other abductions by a stranger may be excluded from police figures when these have resulted in rapes or murders and are categorised accordingly."

How is stopping to help a child left alone in a dangerous place kidnapping?

Duh, do you think maybe when she refused to give the child back to the adult who claimed him and instead kept him?

Only duh she didn't and she didn't take him anywhere. Duh.
Hysterical. Much?