By MIA FREEDMAN
You’re at the beach. You see an elderly man with a little girl. He’s sitting on the beach watching intently. She’s frolicking in the water in her knickers.
What do you do?
Well, someone answered that question by calling the police.
When you know that the old man was the little girl’s grandfather and he’d taken her for a walk to the beach where she’d spontaneously decided to strip off and paddle about in the shallows, having a lovely time while he closely supervised her from the sand, it’s easy to be outraged.
What’s WRONG with people? What’s HAPPENED to our society where we’re so suspicious of everyone and everything that someone reports an innocent family outing TO THE POLICE?
But what if you didn’t know the true story? What if you just saw an old man, on his own, showing a keen interest in someone else’s half-naked little girl? Still outraged?
Last week, I was sitting on a bench in a busy thoroughfare in the CBD at lunchtime, eating a sandwich. A couple of boys caught my eye as they walked past. They were probably about 12 or 13 and in between them was a much younger boy, perhaps 3, holding both their hands. They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying but I studied their body language intently.
This is going to sound awful but here is it: I immediately thought of James Bulger, the little 2 year old boy who was led away from his mother in a busy shopping centre in 1993 by two boys aged 12, who were later charged with his torture and murder.
Lots of people saw them walking with James through the town where he lived. Reportedly, the boy was crying and distressed. Nobody thought to do anything and he was killed soon after.
Just a few weeks ago in the eastern suburbs of Sydney in broad daylight, a young boy was lured away from his family by a man who walked with him for some time along a popular bike track. The boy was crying and managed to avoid being pulled into a car before his parents found him and the man ran off, sparking a police alert across the city.
Shocked, his parents wrote an email, widely circulated on Facebook, that urged people to be vigilant if they saw children in unusual situations with adults who didn’t seem to be their parents. There were up to 200 people who had seen their son with the man and nobody had done anything.
Nobody. Nothing.
They wrote:
“Most of all, we ask that if you ever see a child who looks uncomfortable, or ill at ease, ASK THEM IF THIS IS YOUR MUMMY OR DADDY … I think we have to stop being concerned about ‘interfering’ and start being concerned about who could possibly interefere with our children.
Considering the very close call we had today, and realising that we possibly had a minute or two before a potential tragedy, makes us realise that we are all too complacent in coming forward.”
All of this was top of mind as I watched those two boys walking with the smaller one – without an adult nearby. Does anyone else have those conversations in their head? Does anyone else find their sense of awareness heightened by the horror stories of children being abused and abducted?
In the end, I did nothing, after watching them for a good few minutes and doing my best to read the situation. He looked thrilled to be with the big boys. They were probably his brothers.
But what if he’d been crying? Would I have done something then?
Back to the beach.
Perhaps this is some context for the person – or people – who reported the old man watching his grand-daughter swimming. Was he shattered, mortified and upset to be questioned by police? You bet. Was it confusing for the little girl to have the police come and talk to her Grandad and no doubt have some basic understanding and a lot of confusion about what occurred? No doubt.
But while I have enormous sympathy for the poor man who was simply trying to have a nice outing with his grandaughter, I don’t unilaterally condemn whoever reported their concerns to police. I can’t imagine it was a decision taken easily or spontaneously.
There are ways it could have been done better however. Ways that would have spared the man and the little girl a huge amount of mortification. Ways like going over and striking up an innocent conversation with the man who would have probably welcomed a chat and relished the opportunity to brag about his granddaughter.
Suspicions averted.
Vigilance has its place. As a parent of young children I want everyone in my community to have their eyes and ears open and to be on the lookout for things that look dodgy.
But maybe next time, just get a bit closer, be a bit braver and suss out the situation first.
Top Comments
My uncle was at a playground with his son who has Autism. My cousin was having a bad day and didn't want his dad to sit close to him on the park bench and finally when it was time to go home he started crying as my uncle was taking him to the car. A lady in the park actually came up to him and asked him if he was the boys father. My uncle was so understanding of how it looked from her perspective and was so grateful that she was brave enough to look out for a child that could have been in real danger.
TG