Kentish Express Ashford & District
Kids ‘filmed’ in changing rooms
Girls say group of men spied on them and rattled cubicle
Three men allegedly filmed a group of children in a leisure centre and tried to peer over their changing cubicles, according to a Facebook post.
The social media warning was issued by the sister of the two young girls and a young boy last Friday afternoon, shortly after the alleged incident.
The post has been shared nearly 2,000 times by Ashford mums and other residents.
It says: “Today my two younger sisters and brother went swimming. When they were in the pool my sister said she noticed three Somalian looking men staring at her constantly.
“Afterwards my littlest sister was in her own changing room, while the other two went together.
“After a few minutes my sister on her own heard her lock being rattled, she obviously hadn’t locked the door and it began to open.
“She saw a hand slide in and she banged the door shut hard and the hand shot out.
“She locked it and the person went away. She then went into the others changing room and the next thing they see people actually pulling themselves up on the changing room to look over the top.
“They exclaimed loudly and gathered their things together and went to the Stour Centre staff. As they went there they noticed that two (at least) of the men had phones out.
“The staff immediately tried to investigate but the men were foreign speaking and saying that they had no phones despite the girls saying that they definitely did.
“The girls then called my mum (who was in the car park) and she collected them. They’ve called the police and they want to come around to interview the children. They said that there should be CCTV footage of the men leaving and arriving.
“I just felt that you all should be aware of this – goodness knows what could have hap- pened to my little sister today if she hadn’t acted swiftly and maybe the other two as well.
“This was not a minor incident and left the girls shaking and shocked so please do be very, very careful.”
Kim Walters, manager at the Stour Centre confirmed the incident but said it had “all been blown out of proportion.”
She said: “There was an incident on Friday that the duty manager dealt with there and then.
“He looked at the three boys mobile phones and there was absolutely nothing on them.
“It was reported to the police and I have spoken to the DCI in change who said the case has all been closed down by the police.”
A police spokesperson confirmed the incident and said: “We received a report of a suspicious incident at the Stour Leisure Centre that is reported to have occurred between 3.50pm and 4.20pm on Friday, July 15.
“Officers have spoken to the informant and staff at the leisure centre and inquiries are ongoing.”