The sentence this stranger uses to lure seven-year-old girl from playground
Parents, family members and carers have been warned to educate their children about stranger danger after an experiment on Today showed how easily young people can be lured.
Seven-year-old Georgia Cooke was at the playground where a strange man approached her.
“Excuse me. Have you seen my puppy? Can you come have a look with me?” said Brett Lee, a former Queensland Police officer who posed as a stranger.
“Just come give me a hand. Good on you.”
According to Today reporter Sarah Stewart, Georgia agreed to follow the man because she did not understand that he might have an ulterior motive.
“All she focused on was that lost puppy,” Stewart said.
“She wanted to find the dog. She had no concept that Brett was a stranger, someone she didn’t know that could be leading her away from her parents.”
While Georgia could be coaxed into leaving the park, her older brother Mitchell gave a different reaction.
“No, leave me alone!” the 8-year-old screamed before running away from Lee.
Bruce Morcombe, whose son Daniel was abducted from the Sunshine Coast in 2003, said parents need to have a discussion on personal safety with their children and look out for any signs of danger.
“The parents need to be observant, they need to trust their instincts and they need to report any time they feel something is a little suspicious or something is not quite right,” Morcombe told Sunrise.
“So recognising personal danger, knowing how to react – so get to a safe place or scream or yell, ‘I need help’, but most importantly and the interesting thing about this particular case is, that child did the right thing.”
Last week, security guard Mohammad Hassan Al Bayati was sentenced to two years in jail for kidnapping and indecently assaulting a three-year-old girl at DFO Homebush in Sydney.
Al Bayati took the young child from the shopping centre’s playground to the stairwell, where he exposed himself and touched her underwear.