A mother has warned other parents to keep a watchful eye over their children after her three-year-old son was nearly kidnapped by a man wearing what looked like an army uniform in a Beaufort Street fish and chips shop this week.
A mother has warned other parents to keep a watchful eye over their children after her three-year-old son was nearly kidnapped by a man wearing what looked like an army uniform in a Beaufort Street fish and chips shop this week.
Hooggenoeg resident Sarah Smith* came to Grocott's Mail on Tuesday, urging parents to be more careful when they go out with their children.
Still in shock after her hair-raising experience, Smith said she hopes the incident will be a wake-up call to others.
Together with her sister, Smith described what had happened when she took her son Jasper* out to a local fish and chips shop on Monday.
"There were four men dressed in [army attire]who were sitting together at one table and one woman who was sitting by herself," she said.
While she was busy chatting to a relative at the shop, one of the men allegedly whisked the child away.
"When I looked behind me the child was gone and so were the soldiers," she said.
Smith said she began to panic and ran out the shop, shouting her son's name. She didn't find him in the shop next door and then went into a car repair shop, where someone said they'd seen a man walking away with the child.
The mother headed in the direction where Jasper had been seen and saw the man walking down a passage with her son.
"He left him there and disappeared quickly before I could see his face," Smith said, relieved that her boy was unharmed.
According to Jasper the man had said he was a police officer and asked the child to go somewhere with him.
When Smith went to the police station the following day she was told that they couldn't open a case because she couldn't identify the man and her son was safely back in her care.
"The police told me I should be happy that I found my child alive and said they could not open a case for me," she said.
Smith said she wasn't even sure if the men dressed in army uniforms were actually soldiers.
"I keep wondering if they are real soldiers, but they were wearing soldiers' uniforms," she said.
Things can happen quickly, Smith warned, "I just want to make other people aware of this incident so they can be aware that these things happen".
The police were unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.
*Names have been changed to protect identities of the woman and her son
