IT IS deeply disturbing that the insidious bogeyman of the stranger still manages to pervade our small towns, as demonstrated in the frightening situation on Friday afternoon with a man trying to entice a teenage girl into his car.
It is certainly praiseworthy that our youth and children can recognise danger pretty promptly when it's in front of them. For that we can thank instructions from parents and schools, hammering out the messages of stranger danger to the point that children are now probably naturally wary - far more wary, I suspect, than when I was at primary school.
What is additionally depressing is that it seems to be rare to secure a result, an arrest, in these situations.
Part of the difficulty is that no child is going to linger and take in details, because self-preservation is first and foremost. Proving it will be difficult, if the child is the only witness.
But I suspect that many of these chancers, these perverts, travel over from other parts of the region. They don't make their disgusting attempts in places near to where they live. So they drift over to what they assume is a sleepy part of the world, thinking themselves comfortably anonymous, and make the attempt.