CAMPSITE NIGHTMARE

MAN ARRESTED AFTER GIRL ALLEGEDLY ASSAULTED

A MAN was taken into police custody last night following reports that a young girl was assaulted at a North West campsite on Sunday.

Police conducted a major search to try to find the man, eventually locating him in bushland near Marrawah.

POLICE have arrested a man following accusations that a child was assaulted at a campsite

Forty-one-year-old Cecil Mabb, of Rosebery, allegedly abandoned his vehicle and ran into the bush when he was spotted by a passing motorist on the highway between Marrawah and Arthur River about 2pm on Monday.

He was arrested in the bush about five kilometres from Arthur River at about 4.30pm.

A drone and a helicopter were used to search the remote area.

Police said he was in custody but had not been charged with any offences.

Police said the alleged attack on the girl at the Montagu Recreation Reserve Camping Area was random and the man was not known to the five-year-old girl who was camping there with her parents. They said it was “extremely serious” and “unusual”.

The man was a regular camper at the popular campground in the state’s far North West.

Many campers, especially those with children, packed up from the Montagu campground on Monday after the

alleged incident which police said occurred about 5pm on Sunday.

A family that camps at the ground every summer said it had always been a great, and safe, place for kids to enjoy.

“They all knocked around

together and would go from campsite to campsite. That relaxed feeling has gone now,” the family said.

They said an eerie feeling had descended on the remote coastal enclave since Sunday’s “chaos”.

“We were just kicking back when the girl’s parents ran down asking if we’d seen their little girl,” the campers, from nearby Smithton, said.

“There were hundreds of people here and about 50 boats here at the time. But a lot have packed up and gone home after what happened.

“When we were alerted the little girl was missing everyone in the campground mobilised and went out looking for her.

“She had been riding on her bike with a little bloke about four years old when she got into a car. The young boy came back and told adults what had happened.

“It was about half an hour later we heard she’d been found and then the ambulance and police turned up.”