DETECTIVE MUM
‘Help me find van predator’
A Sandling mum is warning parents about a “predator” who she believes tried to snatch her son.
Angelika Shepherd experienced every mother’s worst fear when she received a call to say her 13-year-old, Sasha, had been victim of a suspected abduction attempt on Saturday.
The teenager had just left a group of friends and was riding home on his bike down Sandling Road when a white Transit van cut across his path at the bend on Sandling Lane and stopped, shortly before 8.50pm. When the van door opened, the terrified Valley Park student turned and ran, before flagging down another driver who called the police.
Sasha, a champion street dancer, believes the same van had passed him around 15 minutes earlier at the Chiltern Hundreds roundabout, travelling towards Maidstone.
Mrs Shepherd, 55, said: “It will take him a while to get over this because the experience really shook him up. He is streetwise and does boxing so he is not easily scared, but when I picked him up he was shaking.
“It was pitch black out there, he doesn’t remember if he was chased. There is no other reason for a man to stop a van in front of a child that late at night and get out. There is a predator out there.”
Police are investigating, but in doing some detective work of her own Mrs Shepherd has come across private CCTV which shows the alleged van in Sandling Road. She has also warned staff at Sandling Primary School and shared the warning on Facebook.
She added: “I just couldn’t live with myself if anything did happen to another child because we didn’t take this incident seriously enough.”
If you have information call police on 01622 604100 quoting reference 02-1463.