A lot of anecdotal evidence of attempted child abductions in Dublin recently?

I

ice

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Firstly not sure if this is the right forum ?

There seems to be reports of a lot of attempted abductions in Dublin recently. One in Bray on the boghall Road where a man grabbed a girl and put her in his car. A number of schools in Clonskeagh and Stillorgan have sent letters and texts to parents about various incidents, children being approached, children being grabbed etc. Most involve white cars/vans

Are there really this amount of would be child abducitons taking place?
 
liaconn said:
Most people think its the same crowd who are attempting it.
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You just hear so many different reports. Its an older man, a man in this 30's, 3 forgien nationals etc

You would think with all the spotlight on them they would lie low at the moment
 
Any links?
Haven't heard much about it. Sounds like it's the same general area (South Dublin/Wicklow).
 
I also heard a number of weeks ago that there were attempted abductions in the Swords area.2 or 3 if I remember correctly
 
The problem is that I hear stories about attempted abductions regularly, and its always a friend of a friend and its very hard to know how many are urban legends or the same story doing the rounds for months.

The story in the newspaper and RTE this week is obviously real, as a complaint was made to the Gardai but this the first time I have seen a news report verifying the story so its hard to know how prevelant it is.
 
Its terrible to say but I have my doubts about a lot of these events. Considering the amount of attempted abductions, we must have the least successful kidnappers in Europe! We had one in my area about a month ago, made the media and caused panic amongst parents. The gardai had to come out and publically deny that it was an abduction attempt. Not saying that kids make all these stories up but I do wonder if sometimes we have frightened kids (understandably) into seeing things that aren't there. How often do you read about a child from a normal family going missing from around their neighbourhood? Almost never. The only kids that go missing seem to be the most vulnerable ones in society. Still, I can understand the reaction of people. You can't be complacent about these things.
 
huskerdu said:
The story in the newspaper and RTE this week is obviously real, as a complaint was made to the Gardai but this the first time I have seen a news report verifying the story so its hard to know how prevelant it is.
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The complaint to the Gardai is not an absolute proof that it is real. The complaint to the Gardai is real, but the incident is still an unverified claim from a 10 year old.
Sunny said:
Its terrible to say but I have my doubts about a lot of these events.
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Me too.
 
There is an interesting report originating from the UK home office

which gives a breakdown of child abductions from a few years ago.
68 succesful stranger child abductions in the UK in 2002-2003 was more than i expected (and yet less than my work colleagues thought!)

sadly nationmaster.com doesnt have figures for child abductions.
anon473
 
We havent had any attempted abductions in my area, but I have heard neighbours and relatives talking about various 'suspicious white vans' driven by men in the area and that these may be the abductors from Swords/Bray or where ever the latest news report says.

I've wondered if this is just an inadvertant reaction to the publicity surrounding the recent madelaine mccann book - similar to the way once somebody mentions head lice, everyone instinctively starts scratching.
 
I was hearing these stories since I was a child. And they are always the same, it's always a van and it's always white.

Maybe incidents have occurred but there is a lot of scaremongering around. If scaremongering can make children cautious it can indirectly help.

But there are a lot of hysterical people out there too.

Just on kids making up stories.
Here in our rural area, we have a national school, a one man garda station and a rural bus service. Not unique, heard the same story on Pat Kenny show a few times.
Parents usually collect their child at the crossroads but the bus driver won't wait alone on the bus with the child.
Now you can't realy drop a child off on their own at the crossroads on a dark winters evening but that's the parents fault for not being there on time.

The driver would drop the child off at the garda station as if the child invents a tall tale about inappropriate behaviour the bus driver would never clear their name, mud sticks. The lynch mob would be out
Protect theyself
 
A lot of scare mongering by the media. Look sideways at a kid crossing the road and you are labled a child abductor and the ma is on to Joe Duffy.
 
I've regularly seen dodgy looking white vans with even more dodgy looking occupants driving slowly throughout the estate glancing into every driveway.

Turns out, they were just collecting those bags of clothes you're often invited to leave out. They rarely get any so their behaviour can look especially suspicious. If children were in the vicinity, it would easy to get the wrong impression.

As someone has said, if abduction is their real goal, they must be extremely incompetent as well as mentally twisted.
 
micmclo said:
I was hearing these stories since I was a child. And they are always the same, it's always a van and it's always white.

Maybe incidents have occurred but there is a lot of scaremongering around. If scaremongering can make children cautious it can indirectly help.

But there are a lot of hysterical people out there too.

Just on kids making up stories.
Here in our rural area, we have a national school, a one man garda station and a rural bus service. Not unique, heard the same story on Pat Kenny show a few times.
Parents usually collect their child at the crossroads but the bus driver won't wait alone on the bus with the child.
Now you can't realy drop a child off on their own at the crossroads on a dark winters evening but that's the parents fault for not being there on time.

The driver would drop the child off at the garda station as if the child invents a tall tale about inappropriate behaviour the bus driver would never clear their name, mud sticks. The lynch mob would be out
Protect theyself
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I agree. When the kids next door to my parents were younger they used to like dropping in for a chat and a biscuit. If my father was there on his own he wouldn't answer the door to them as he didn't want to put himself in a vulnerable situation. I don't blame him. I think we've gone from one extreme to another now. Once, we didn't protect children enough now we have made them over aware and every single little thing can be misconstrued. Sad, really.
 
When I was a young 'un, a neighbor might call us over to their door and give us money to go down the shops for milk, tea, biscuits, etc. Or more usually cigarettes, the local shopkeeper knew us and who they were for so no issue.
And some money or sweets for us as payment, might be only 20p but that's twenty penny sweets
Nowadays if you call children over to your door and offer them money or sweets you'd probably be arrested :(
 
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