would you report this person and how could I go about doing it!?

[sammyjayneex]

So we live in a culdesac and my children play out on the street. I check on them every 5-10 mins.
My 9 year old told me when I brought her in for tea that this van ( looks like it's some form of transport for dropping Off the elderly or disabled children to their homes) and he was dropping off this lady ( I think she's a member of staff he must work with as she wears a badge but I can't quite catch where she works) in one of the houses opposite to us. My daughter said she was stood with her friend and he started talking to them and they turned around and said something along the lines of 'your in trouble you, or are you in trouble or stay out of trouble you' something along those lines, my daughter didn't quite catch it because he said of and drove off. Now to me this is unacceptable, approaching young girls, making unpleasant remarks and driving off. She said she just ignored him. I've told her she should never talk to strangers and she should come straight to me as soon as it happens instead of ages after. I have seen this van plenty of times. One time a man made a Comment towards me whilst I was walking down the street, I ignored him and put him down to being a rude sad man, but now he's made comments towards my daughter I'm fuming and want to report him but there isn't any company name on the van. It's just a van with Windows. I was thinking of waiting tomorrow afternoon for the van to come up and taking is reg number or approaching myself and asking him who the hell he thinks he is!

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but maybe he was concerned about them running out whilst he was manouvering his way out of the cul de sac? OP said he was talking to them before they turned round, maybe it was 'watch out kids I'm reversing my van' or similar. Then when they turned round he gave a friendly 'stay out of trouble' remark as he left. As he is a community bus driver he is probably spouting all sorts of cliched comments all day, the sort that says 'warm enough for you?' etc...

I think the fact that the OP doesn't know their neighbour suggests that where they live isn't somewhere where people generally talk to each other very much.

fuckoff that's a good point actually. But as OP refuses to acknowledge he's allowed to speak to them I doubt you will get a sensible reply.

Sammyjay - since you have stated that you don't know exactly what the man said, and neither does your daughter - is it possible that he said something like 'Hello trouble' or 'Hey up trouble' - as previous posters have suggested? So he wasn't telling her she was in trouble or was causing trouble, but was simply greeting her in passing?

I am afraid I disagree with you that no adult should ever speak to a child under 16 unless the parents are present - because that suggests that no adult could ever have an innocent reason to chat to a child. I think that it is far better to teach our children what is and is not safe and appropriate contact from other adults - so a casual conversation in the shop is fine, but you never ever go with someone unless your mum or dad knows where you are going and has said OK. And it is OK to have a chat with an adult, and it would be OK for them to help you up if you had fallen over, but it wouldn't be OK for them to hurt you or touch you somewhere private.

I say this because the people who do target children to harm them may well not be strangers to them. A child may know someone from their school (as in the case of the Soham kidnappings - Maxine Carr was a TA at the girls' school), or may be someone who works in a local shop, voluntary group etc, or even a friend's parent/carer. I think it is safer for children to know what constitutes risky or dangerous behaviour from an adult (whether known to them or a stranger), and what is OK, than to simply absorb the message that only strangers can be dangerous.

The position of where the van drops this woman off and where the kids were, the kids were not in his way and didn't have to manoeuvre his van. The kids where on like a grass type thing and he was on the road so no reason for it

That's what your dd says? How do you know they weren't in his way and she doesn't want to tell you in case she gets in trouble for not being careful on the road? Is that possible?

well if he was close enough to be considered as having 'approached' them then maybe he was close enough to give them a warning to watch out?

Right ill explain as best I can....

So there is two culdesacs on either side of each other. I live on one and the woman he was dropping off lives on the other (that's why I don't know her as such as a neighbour because she lives on the other culdesac) In between the two culdesacs is a Road where cars and vans ect use to join other streets/roads ect. Now this van stops on the road in-between both culdesacs to drop her off but doesn't actually need to enter them but he can easily see the children and talk to the children playing on both sides as the road isn't wide, but he doesn't need to use the culdesacs to turn or anything unless he wants to drop directly off at a house. So the kids couldn't be in his way. My kids never go into the road and always stay inside the street.

I am afraid I disagree with you that no adult should ever speak to a child under 16 unless the parents are present

Aside from anything else, it would make classrooms quite busy with 30-odd parents having to be there.

ricardian

My kids never go into the road and always stay inside the street.
She's 9. Chances are she's disobeyed that rule on more than one occasion. She knows she will get in trouble for being in the road so has changed things a little bit to avoid a telling off.
You have to accept that is at least a possibility.

Maybe he wasn't meaning harm, maybe he was just being daft with the kids. I'll just keep an eye out on it in future but it won't change my view on the whole situation.

ricardian

Ricardian now your just being ridiculous!!
Teachers and parents and children completely different scenario.

"Yes, more offences are committed by men I'm not disputing the facts, but you don't know whether it's the man or the woman that's a threat. If there's two strangers walking down the street, a man and a woman, you don't know your child would be safer speaking to the woman than the man. Therefore, just as likely."

This makes no sense. Your logic is screwy.

If you saw a butterfly and a tiger would you say each was as likely to bite you? Would you feel equally comfortable with both? No? Why not?

They are different species! That's like saying a cat and a person.

It's like the cat in the box. There's an equal chance it's alive or dead. You don't know until you open the box. So at that moment it is both.

A man and woman are walking down the street. You don't know which (if any) of them is a threat to your child so at that moment in time, they are both a threat.

Thanks for giving a better description of the situation - it does seem a bit different now, more like random man in van on the road at the end of the cul de sac shouts something out to your DC.
Before it seemed like colleague of neighbour gives friendly greeting to nearby playing kids as he drops off said neighbour at home.

Can I just point out that it's impossible for a butterfly to bite?

It's like the cat in the box

Am howling

It's like the cat in the box

Heisenberg and Schroedinger are in a car.

They get pulled over. Heisenberg is driving and the cop asks him "Do you know how fast you were going?"

"No, but I know exactly where I am" Heisenberg replies.

The cop says "You were doing 55 in a 35."

Heisenberg throws up his hands and shouts "Great! Now I'm lost!"

The cop thinks this is suspicious and orders him to pop open the trunk. He checks it out and says "Do you know you have a dead cat back here?"

"We do now, asshole!" shouts Schroedinger.

This man just wanted to shout stupid pointless comments out of his Window to young girls who couldn't been understand him and were left confused

But so what? Why does it matter? We all encounter loads of confusing things without getting worked up about it.

Surely history demonstrates that you can't assume that, when a man and a woman are approaching, you should inevitably assume that the woman is safe whilst the man probably isn't. To take an incredibly obvious example, what if the man is my DH (for whose safety I can vouch 100%) and the woman is Myra Hindley?

Perhaps the elderly lady had been complaining that your child had been naughty on the street.

Oh Myra hindley's come up, brilliant.

What history actually demonstrates is that men kill and abuse significantly more than women.

So? Are we meant to decide to avoid all men due to that? Bang goes the human race