Sutton school sends '˜stranger danger alert' after pupil approached in street

Croft Primary School said it was making parents aware after a ‘spate’ of incidents in the county.

The alert was put out by Chairman of the Governors, Coun Steve Carroll, and said: “There has been a spate of incidents recently, where school pupils have been approached by members of the public – some with, some without a vehicle – but all trying to distract the children into going with them. A Croft pupil was targeted in a similar way last week.”

Head teacher Mrs Elizabeth Blount said: “Some of older children have started walking home on their own and one of the children was approached by a woman who kept asking ‘how old are you, how old are you’.

“It unnerved him, so he ran to his mum and told her what happened.

“Nottinghamshire schools have a ‘Safe School’ system in pace to alert each other of incidents and we have generally seen an increase in incidents in the past few weeks.

“We are quite vulnerable here, we have a really busy road on one side and sometimes we do have members of the public try to talk to our children through the railings. On the other side we have Sutton Lawn, which is a big open space.”

Coun Carroll added: “We want to make sure our children are safe and that we are there to support them.

“The head had told me that someone tried to encourage one of the children walking from school.

“The information we’ve got is very scattered. I’ll be meeting with the head this afternoon and talking to police to help with their intelligence.

The school warned parents whose children walk home alone: “Make sure they know to come back to school immediately if they are worried.

“Staff members are on site until at least 5.30pm every evening.”