Just before dusk, my nine-year-old daughter came into the house and told me she had been approached by a stranger while she was playing with her friend on the green immediately in front of our house; apparently a man had walked up the road, crossed the green on one of the footpaths and left again in more or less the direction he came (certainly the route she described was not a direct one that someone would take on passing through). She reports that the man said to her “You look like a couple of nice girls, I’m going to come back for you later”.
After confirming that her friend (who lives only a couple of doors away) was telling more or less the same story, I called the police; it was obviously too late to catch up with the man in question, but they came around and took down the details and they’ll be patrolling the area for a while.
Now of course it could all be completely innocent; it might be that the girls misheard/misunderstood the man, or even that they’re making it up, but it still has me very worried.
Well, he’s definitely some kind of scary weirdo… but either he’s a scary weirdo who only wants to frighten little girls, or he’s a scary weirdo who does want to kidnap little girls but is very, very bad at it. Telling them beforehand and then leaving isn’t going to make the list of “Top 10 Kidnapper Techniques” anytime soon. Of course, really crazy people are not generally known for their good judgement, so I’m glad everyone seems to be taking it seriously.
I’ll vote a scary weirdo that is just trying to scare kids. A real pedophile/child predator wouldn’t play around and would just take the kid.
Still a very very good idea to be vigilant. I wouldn’t be surprised if the type of person who likes to scare little kids like that could easily cross over to being the type who does something more overt.