Police are chasing a man after an 11-year-old boy was approached by a stranger in a white van as he walked home from school in Melbourne’s east.
Police have released a computer-generated image of a man they wish to speak to in connection with the attempted child abduction in Blackburn at 3.45pm on November 18.
The man, believed to be between 30 and 40 years old, stopped on the wrong side of the road and told the boy that his mother had asked him to take him home.
The boy refused and told what happened to his mother, who reported him to the police.
The 11-year-old’s mother revealed that her “shaken” son had locked all the doors in the house when he came home from school.
“He’d never felt panic like that before, so he felt a little bit of shock, a little bit of worry trying to figure out (what happened),” he said.
“I hate to think what would have happened if she had gone with him.”
Victoria Police have released images of a Caucasian man with dirty, matted blonde hair, as well as a white van seen in the area before the incident.
Police have released a computer-generated image of a man they wish to speak to in connection with the attempted child theft in Blackburn at 3.45pm on November 18 (pictured).
Victoria Police have released images of a white van seen in the area before the incident.
The man has a “rough voice,” the boy told police.
A 14-year-old girl was forced to flee to a nearby park in a second attempted child abduction in Melbourne in a fortnight.
A stranger stopped next to her on Spring Street in Tullamarine, in the city’s west, at around 5.45pm on Wednesday, November 27.
The man reportedly asked the girl where she lived before telling her to get into his white van. She ran to a nearby park full of families and he left.
On Tuesday, a man in a white van approached a child heading to school at Boronia Heights Primary School in Melbourne’s east.
“Police are investigating after a man driving a white van approached a child in Boronia on December 3,” Victoria Police said.
‘The boy walked away and reported the matter to the police. The investigation is ongoing.’
Police say the description of the vehicle and the men involved in the second and third incidents do not match.
Anyone with information or insight into the incidents is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.