To think there are probably more attempted abductions of kids than we think?

[GoldRhino]

My aim in this thread is to spread awareness- apologies if it annoys anyone.

In the last few years we have had at least 4 attempted abductions of kids from local schools (‘naice area’). Our school sent out alerts to let everyone know. There were various men in vans attempting to grab kids and two children that we know well narrowly escaped being dragged into a car just around the corner from our house last year and were really traumatised.

Then earlier today I saw the headline about the Line of Duty actresses’ son who nearly got abducted yesterday in Beckenham. He was 11 and walking home from school.

All of these events have made me very concerned about letting my kids walk home alone.

I’m also wondering why these attempted abductions don’t get more press attention so that others are more aware.

[FreyaB84]

Whilst it undoubtedly happens, I don't think it's massively common and I agree that a lot of the Facebook posts will turn out to be false.

We had one locally to us a little while back. Man in van parked outside school watching the kids at pick up time. It was posted on Facebook and the school sent a letter round warning everyone to be vigilant. In the end, it turned out to be a Father who didn't do the school run very often. He didn't even have a van!

The uncomfortable truth is that your child is far, far more likely to come to harm at the hands of somebody known to them.

[Tangledtresses]

We've had quite a few here over the years! Nice town etc
My son was approached by a bloke in a van outside the house! Asked if he wanted to get in??
One a few months back has just been sentenced for approaching teenage girls and trying to get them in his car.. this was 2 minutes from the school gate!

[Moondust001]

They are extremely rare, but I think that, as with many things, social media fuels a lot of hysteria. One needs to remember also that, as with many forms of crime, even with such rare incidents, it is more often than not a family member who is responsible. Disputes between parents are far more likely to result in child abductions than stranger danger. Yes, it can happen, and children need to be taught to be aware. But a far bigger danger, in my opinion, is restrictions and narrowly lived years of growing because of a fear that is out of proportion with the actual risk.

[saraclara]

It's just the school passing along every little rumour as an ass covering exercise

Exactly. I can see their problem, especially if a reporting parent is otherwise going to be mouthing off publicly if they do nothing. But it's this sort of thing that promotes irrational fears and makes people lose the ability to assess real risk.

[user1471538283]

I think they are rare and most abuse of children happens with family or friends of family.

I had read that people who abduct children know who to target. Children that are left unattended, do not look like they would kick up a fuss etc. Of course, children who are not left unattended happen as an opportunity but that is rarer.

I instilled in my DS inappropriate behavior from anyone, not just strangers was something to tell me about and he was to remove himself from situations if he could but also who he could go to if he were in trouble or if something felt "off". He also was not afraid to kick off or run up to someone (say a lady with children). And he had an actively involved parent who would listen and believe him, he didn't need to go looking for attention.

[Triffid1]

@TheVolturi

Our school regularly send messages saying there has been a car/van trying to pick up children near the school
It's a very busy school as well so blatant.
Makes me feel sick.

I would be having strong words with the head teacher about this personally. If it's genuine, then I'd expect the school to be more proactive than sending messages. But it's not. It's just the school passing along every little rumour as an ass covering exercise so that if one day something bad does happen they can say, "well, we always warned our parents". It's bollocks and actually very irritating.

[DancesWithTortoises]

Most Facebook rumours are totally false. Very few genuine police warnings issued in 40 years of teaching.

[BeneathYourWisdom]

Sleepy little village where I grew up, I was playing with my friend in her garden. We were about 10.

Garden was on a corner, raised up, quaint little cottage. We became aware of a man watching us. Ignored him. Eventually he started trying to talk to us, something about when the house was built, we both took fright and ran indoors. When her mother came out he’d vanished but she didn’t let us out again that day.

His intentions could have been purely innocent but who knows?

Neither of us took fright easily, normally would have chatted to a stranger through the railings, but there was something odd about him.

[BiBabbles]

It's not unreasonable to think attempts are more common than is widely known about all attempts at crime are likely more common than widely known but I think there needs to be caution on increasing reporting beyond the typical recommendations that reduce opportunity as it may cause more harm than good like in recent situations where people have had witch hunts sent on them from someone posting BS online.

Last year, there was a frenzy around my DDs' school about a nearby hotel housing refugees and some local homeless people who at that were hanging around begging which has been a well known local issue in that area for years. There were claims on children being approached, on this happening, on that happening, people were wanting to go after the parent governor for not doing enough (and needed to reminded that most of what they wanted wasn't in parent governor's remit), people were making nasty claims about the hotel and school staff, we had councillors trespass on hotel property to film people and harass hotel staff, it was mayhem.

Yes, police got involved, the police and the school made statements for students to be vigilent and that there would be additional patrols. The only report that ended up having evidence to back it was yes, there was someone asking passing people, including school children, for money who was moved on. All that drama and nastiness didn't make any of our children safer - if anything it turned attention away from some of the bullying happening during leaving time.

[Gr4c3liz]

Often when I was younger adult men would try to make me go with them, not sure they were planning to kidnap me though although I guess it would be technically. Unfortunately I know it can happen though and have a bit of a story relating to this. It happened about 9 years ago. It’s very outing so nc.

Two of my friends from school were taken to someone’s flat they had never met (let alone a family member) after they bought them alcohol after school and they were spiked/drugged. One was found hidden under a bed (similar to Shannon Matthews) and completely out of it. The other managed to escape the flat and contacted an ambulance, fortunately. It was only over the course of one evening/night and the girls went to hospital, had their stomachs pumped but were otherwise okay. I’m sure very traumatised though.

They had originally told their parents I was with them after school (so that there were 3 of us instead of just them 2) and decided instead of coming clean... to say that I WAS with them and that all they knew was that the kidnappers had taken me on a bus somewhere... The CID came to my parents house at 1am and told them what had “happened” and I had to get out of bed to “prove” I was there and hadn’t been out with them nor kidnapped and taken on a bus. Meanwhile they had been trying to monitor all buses out of the area.

Not sure if the men were planning to ‘keep’ my friends (for lack of better word) or what their intentions were... but either way it was not good. It is definitely not as rare as people think for adults to try to persuade teens or even children to go with them, for whatever reason.

[Postern]

@Hardbackwriter

A couple of people on this thread have referred to schools sending out information as if it that proves the incident was real - but a school isn't going to investigate it and what head isn't going to err on the side of passing on the information if it's not clear whether it's verified but there's any risk at all of a child being harmed after they miss the opportunity to warn parents?

Yes, exactly. I know that the one 'incident' I mentioned in my post above our builder's van pulled in near the school while the phoned us for directions on the first day of the job was a complete misreading of a benign situation that went viral, but the school sent out a 'warning' later that day. (DS wasn't yet at school, so I was forwarded it by a neighbour.) I don't know what 'investigation', if any, a school office would do before sending out a warning, but as in that case, no one had called the police, it presumably just came from parents asking them to 'warn'.

It doesn't mean an incident is real'.

[QueenAdreena]

I can think of at least 4 occasions in the last couple of years where parents have claimed that someone had tried to grab their child/lead them away in our local town. Each time, the police have looked into it, spoken to other witnesses and checked CCTV and they were proven to be innocuous situations. They seem to be the same parents who are constantly sharing hysterical posts about dog thefts (of which there have been exactly none in our town in the past year).

Obviously appalling things can and do happen, and I always err on the side of caution when keeping my children safe, but I don’t believe it happens on the scale that social media would have you believe.

[Hardbackwriter]

A couple of people on this thread have referred to schools sending out information as if it that proves the incident was real - but a school isn't going to investigate it and what head isn't going to err on the side of passing on the information if it's not clear whether it's verified but there's any risk at all of a child being harmed after they miss the opportunity to warn parents?

[TheVolturi]

Our school regularly send messages saying there has been a car/van trying to pick up children near the school
It's a very busy school as well so blatant.
Makes me feel sick.

[redcandlelight]

I think most 'abductions' are actually the other parent in a family separation issue.

we had one locally where the father didn't allow the mother to travel with the children to visit family abroad. the mother then asked her brother to pick up dc on their way from school (dc walk to and from) and drive them to the airport.

[JesusInTheCabbageVan]

@Echobelly

As far as I can tell they are staggeringly rare, it's not something I worry about at all, as other risks are much more likely.

I do have a suspicion (not saying this is the case with you OP) that in some cases 'attempted abductions' that people 'hear about' from a friend or neighbour are wild exaggerations of something totally innocuous.

Funny (slightly awful) story:

When I was about 8 or 9, we had the talk in school about stranger danger (this was in the 1980s). After school I was walking home with two other girls, and we became very paranoid about a man parked further down the road. He was just minding his own business unloading shopping from his car and didn't even glance at us, but he was A STRANGER... so after a bit of whispering and glaring, we bolted past him and went our separate ways home.

The next day, everyone in school was talking about some girls who had been followed home by a strange man. After a while, I realised that the girls were us. The other two had apparently gone home and told their parents, and had got a bit carried away I didn't say anything, but I'm sure that today it would have been all over SM.

[Postern]

@Lou573

We had one locally that went round the area for a couple of days. Turned out the poor man had been helping the girl up after she’d fallen off her scooter.

Yes, @MangoSeason's post above has reminded me that our builders once pulled into a layby in the vicinity of the village school to call me for directions to our house, and within a couple of hours the village FB page had gone mad with 'sinister men in white van ogling children in the school playground' stuff. Even after I went on the page and explained that this 'sighting' was in fact our harmless builders looking for directions and given how long elapsed between the phone call and them showing up at our house, they must have been in the layby for less than a minute the hysteria continued, and the school actually issued a warning later that day, presumably because of parental pressure. Which then of course gave the whole thing a false legitimacy.

I can only conclude that people at some level enjoy the frisson. Several people on the FB page claimed to have passed the builder's van registation on to the police, but when I actually phoned the police myself (at this point I was concerned that our very nice builders would be being falsely investigated), they said they had had no such reports.

[noblegreenk]

I dont think it's as rare as people think it is. My dd is only 2 so it's not something I've had to worry too much about as yet. But when I was a child I had a few incidents (in the mid 90s) where men tried to get me (and a friend) into their car. One of the incidents got reported to the police and they did take it seriously. I remember the police officer saying to my Mum that unfortunately these kind incidents happen more than people realise.

[NotSoScummyMummy]

I think they’re rare too but DS (10 Yr6) had been nagging me to let him walk to and from school on his own since the start of Yr6 so for the last few months I’ve let him. It’s only a 6 min walk but down a lane adjacent to woodland and across two roads with crossings next to a busy supermarket. I followed him at a distance for the first few weeks to check he was OK on the roads. Due to Covid and his school staggering start and finish times, there are much fewer people around (lots more people driving DC to school too) and it just hasn’t been sitting right with me. I can see him out of the bedroom window walking for part of the way down the lane but not all and sometimes there isn’t another soul walking down there whereas normally it’d be full of people. DS insisted he was going on his own though.

Since reading about the actress’s son and randomly coming across a TV programme about a 10 year old girl going missing after being left to walk home after school never to be found 30 odd years later, I’ve now insisted on walking him down the lane and across the roads. He’s absolutely furious about it but I look at it as less opportunity for anything untoward to happen.

[Crunchymum]

We get them on the parents whatsapp group every few months "friend of a friends DC was nearly taken"

In five years of kids being in school, there has been just two official notices from the school (which is of course two too many!)

Mine are too young to be anywhere alone yet (8 and 6) but I do worry!

[VladmirsPoutine]

Does anyone know is it more likely that a child will be abducted by a complete stranger or is it more likely that the child will be known to the abductor?

[PopsicleHustler]

This is so scary because I witness an incident first hand at my children's infant school. It was literally just last November. We were walking home and its pa pretty busy area, an infant school, a junior school a few streets away, a busy main road with a busy store and lots of other little shops and we are linked to a major motorway and drive through restaurants so not exactly your quiet area. In broad daylight a man was doing the business to himself whilst watching the children walking home. He was doing it facing a garden fence which isn't particularly high. It was so disgusting. I called the police and he was arrested and it turned out he was not from this area. It was indeed very horrible to witness. And I was in tears and just glad my 7year old and 4 year old didn't see it. I have heard of men coming in Van's and swiping kids that is why I have my kids on the inside and me nearest the road whilst walking on the pavement. To protect them from both traffic and kidnappers. You hear of it all too common, kids being kidnapped and horrendous stories. Makes my heart break....

[Chanjer]

Depends if you've correctly assessed how common they actually are?

People are in general not cut out to assess this sort of risk or probability

[SirVixofVixHall]

Attempted abductions twice here, close together ( just pre Covid ). Police and school warnings at the time.
A few years earlier there had been another warning.
I live in a rural area, this can happen anywhere.

[Lou573]

We had one locally that went round the area for a couple of days. Turned out the poor man had been helping the girl up after she’d fallen off her scooter.