It comes after her 8-year-old daughter said she was approached by a man after she left school for home. She felt a hand tap her on the shoulder from behind.
She turned and saw a stranger who said her parents had asked him to pick her up from school.
The incident happened about 3pm on December 12 near Norman Kirk Memorial Pool on Oxford St, Lyttelton. The girl attends the nearby primary school.
“I said, ‘what’s the password,’ and I was backing up at the same time. I didn’t know him. My parents wouldn’t send someone to pick me up,” the girl told The Star.
The girl said he replied: “I’m the best.”
She then ran off. “I turned and I spinned my little legs up the hill.” She felt “scared, nervous, worried”.
When her daughter told her what had happened, the mother warned the school and then called the police.
Her mother is relieved they set up a password system when her daughter started school.
Alert to the possible danger, the girl knew to run when the stranger failed to say the password.
Police would not say if any suspects had been identified.
The girl described the man as having olive skin, European, aged in his 30s or 40s, about 1.9m tall, slim, with dark hair and wearing a black jumper and dark blue jeans. He may have had a septum (nose) piercing.
The girl said the man was standing in front of a white van, but she is unsure if this belonged to him.
The mother strongly recommends parents have a stranger danger talk with their children and set up passwords so they can check if an adult picking them up is genuine.
- Anyone with information about this incident can contact police on the 105 non-emergency line, quoting file number 231213/4326
