KEY POINTS:
A Taranaki mother is furious police are apparently playing down an attempted abduction of her little girl from her country school this week.
Two young men were seen going into the St Patrick's Catholic Primary School gates at Kaponga and grabbing the five-year-old on Wednesday.
They ran off
in different directions when the girl's eight-year-old friend called out to her.
The five-year-old's parents moved to New Zealand to escape the pressures of Europe.
"One of the reasons we came here is because we thought New Zealand was a safe place for our kids and now this has happened," her mother told the Taranaki Daily News.
"I want to get a warning out to parents and schools to be aware of what is happening to this country. Some people are so arrogant they can walk in off the street and grab a child.
"The police told me they didn't want to make a big thing of it - they didn't want to scare people. But I'm thinking it's about time somebody did get scared. We have to do something as parents. You can't just leave it to the school."
The girl drew the police a picture of a man with a sad face, wearing a hood, with tattooed forearms.
Stratford police have said getting an accurate description of what happened was difficult.
School principal Libby Widdington said the girls were alone on the entrance side of the school about 12.45pm, during the lunch break.
"Because of her language difficulty (the girl) had trouble describing what happened, but (the witness) said there were two men out there," she told the paper.
"She demonstrated how a man put his arms around (the girl) and said the other man had his hand over her mouth."
Ms Widdington said a community meeting was likely to be called to consider what actions are needed to ensure the children are always safe at the school.
"I'm still having difficulty believing it has happened. It makes me feel sick," she said.
Constable Drew Bennett said after interviewing the witness on Wednesday night, he was still not certain exactly what happened.
"At worst, it's an attempted abduction, at best it's some kind of misunderstanding. I'm treating it as something serious, with an open mind.
"I'm not trying to minimise it, but we don't want people in Kaponga panicking and running around with pitchforks. Don't panic, something's happened and we're investigating it with an open mind."
- NZPA
