A primary school and a preschool near where a child was indecently assaulted last week say police didn’t alert them to what had happened.
Police said a girl was approached by an unknown man near Aronia Park in Goodwood Heights, in the South Auckland suburb of Manukau, at about 8pm on Friday.
The man indecently assaulted her in nearby bushes before fleeing.
Everglade Primary School Principal John Robinson told RNZ police came to ask about CCTV but did not mention what had happened.
“I found out about it last night,” he said.
“My wife said ‘hey, this is on the Herald website, that’s near your school isn’t it?’ I looked and thought ‘yes it is, my goodness, what is this?’ That was the first I knew.”
Robinson said he didn’t know who the victim was, or whether they were a student, or former student, of the school.
He said the park was about 300 metres from the school and the incident was worrying.
“People see the Everglade community as quiet, and safe, and a nice place for kids,” Robinson said.
“Any parent would be worried to think ‘my gosh, this happened where I live’.”
Robinson said information had since been posted on the school’s portal, alerting parents to what had happened.
He said the victim was in the school community’s thoughts and they were there to offer support.
“We certainly wish the police well in terms of apprehending this person because, often, once is not enough, is it, for people who have those impulses or who are that way inclined?”
Nearby BestStart Everglade Preschool also said police hadn’t told them about the incident.
Centre manager Candice Bester said she had seen police in the area on Tuesday.
“We thought nothing of it, because we didn’t see anything else happening,” she said.
“One police officer came to our door and asked my admin lady, she’s downstairs, if we have CCTV cameras and stuff, so we said ‘no, we don’t actually have on the premises’, and that’s about it, no other information was passed to us.”
Bester said the area was beautiful, with kids walking up and down to school each day.
“It’s just really sad that our kids can’t be walking around by themselves, or going to a park,” she said.
“We should be a community where our kids are safe and others look after others’ children, other people’s kids too.”
“It’s quite alarming.”
Police have been approached for comment.
They had previously said several people were at the park at the time of the assault and they asked those people to get in touch with them.
Any residents with CCTV or dashcam footage were also urged to come forward.
rnz.co.nz
