Gardaí seek man who tried to lure girl into car

GARDAÍ are searching for a middle-aged man who tried to lure a seven-year-old girl into his car after claiming he’d been sent to pick her up from school.

According to gardaí, the man had been sitting in a small blue car parked near a national school in Cobh, Co Cork, when the incident occurred last Wednesday afternoon. At about 2.30pm the girl left the school to walk home. A short time later she passed the car in which the man was the sole occupant.

The man had the window open and told the girl to get into the car. He said one of her relatives had asked him to give her a lift home. She didn’t recognise the man and didn’t reply. There was no attempt to follow the girl and she got home safely.

A short time later an adult reported the incident to Gardaí.

“Fortunately the girl did the right thing and didn’t get into the car, especially as the man was unknown to her,” a Garda spokesman said.

Detectives believe the man, described as being 40 to 50 years old, may have been sitting in the car for some time before children exited Rushbrooke National School.

The man’s car had been parked on a road adjacent to the school at Norwood.

“We are certainly treating this as suspicious,” the Garda spokesman said. “A lot of people would have been in the area at the time, especially as school was finishing. We are anxious to talk to anybody who saw this man and the car, or where the car went to afterwards.”

Gardaí said they had no reports of similar incidents in the Cobh area in recent times. However, they are checking with other Garda stations to see if there had been any reports of a man trying to entice children into his car.

Anybody with information is asked to contact Cobh Garda Station at 021-4908538.