Shock figures reveal one child is abducted in Northern Ireland every week

Another attempt to make the public think this happens all the time? I would imagine the majority are abducted by someone known to them. If 1 child was really abducted by strangers every week I think we might just have heard about it before now!

Mods please move if you think this is in the wrong place.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/shock-figures-reveal-one-child-is-abducted-in-northern-ireland-every-week-16058302.html

Hundreds of children have been snatched from the streets of Northern Ireland during the past five years, a Sunday Life investigation has revealed.

And police are struggling to bring the culprits to court — with just a third of all cases being cleared.

Since 2006 a total of 230 children have been abducted by adults, many of whom are total strangers. Since April of this year 24 children have been snatched in Northern Ireland.

That’s an average of 46 abductions each year — almost one a week — yet police are solving just 32 per cent of these crimes.

Unlike the high profile May 2007 case of Madeleine McCann, who went missing on a family holiday in Portugal, few of these cases have been made public in the media.

The majority of abductions have taken place in Belfast and Derry.

Detectives have also investigated incidents in more rural areas including Antrim, Armagh, Ballymena, Coleraine, Fermanagh, Lisburn, Omagh and Newry.

The PSNI has insisted they are doing everything in their power to ensure children are safe on the streets.

A police spokesman said: “The protection of children is one of our top priorities and the PSNI work with a range of organisations and

the community to ensure our children stay safe.”

But Sunday Life’s findings have worried politicians, with one DUP Policing Board member vowing to raise the issue at its next session.

“It’s alarming to think that a child is being abducted almost every week in Northern Ireland,” said East Londonderry MLA Adrian

McQuillan. “These statistics are frightening and need highlighted.

“I’ll definitely be raising this at the next meeting of the Policing Board.”

Although the majority of child abductions are carried out by family members, usually a parent who has just split with their partner, a high percentage involve strangers.

Last month Bangladeshi national Shidul Islam, 43, was arrested and charged with trying to snatch a youngster from close to his east Belfast home.

Have I been in a coma for the last 50 years!!!!

Kitty, not just you in a coma but me too presumably, plus the whole population of N Ireland. I'm sure there are cases of children taken away by one parent from another, as the articles says, but there's no way dozens of children in N Ireland are being snatched by strangers and we aren't being told about it.

I imagine what the Sunday Life means is that children have been approached by strangers with the possible intention of abduction, but the child hasn't actually been abducted. We do hear quite regularly of children being approached by people (usually but not always men) in cars who then try to entice the child/children into the car. Thankfully children have enough sense not to get in, but run off and tell their parents who then alert the police, and we then hear about it on the tv news and in the papers. The 32% figure given for police solving these crimes is probably quite right if it refers to catching the people responsible. The PSNI are like police everywhere, too many crimes and too few officers, and in these cases usually the only people able to give a description of the men and cars are the children themselves. I'm actually quite surprised that a third of these people are caught, I'd have thought the figure would have been even less, particularly as most of them are operating in Belfast and Derry, probably the two busiest places for the police in N Ireland.

There's nothing new about these attempts at enticing children into cars, I don't remember a time when this wasn't something all children were warned about. It certainly doesn't prove though that mysterious strangers are breaking into buildings (or going in through conveniently unlocked doors) and lifting children out of their beds without leaving the smallest trace of their presence behind. If that ever happened here it would be headline news, absolutely no doubt about that.