Boy, 10, approached by youths in ‘disturbing’ incident

An area near where the incident occurred. Photo / Grace Odlum

A young boy was “very brave” when he was approached by two youths in a potentially dangerous situation.

Yesterday, a concerned mother posted on social media regarding a “disturbing” incident that had occurred with her son after school.

She said as her 10-year-old son was riding home by himself on a shared walkway/cycleway from Raumati South School, on the Kāpiti Coast, he was stopped just past Raumati Rd by two older boys with a dirt bike, whom the boy had described as being in their “late teens, maybe 20″.

The older boys allegedly tried to encourage her son to go for a ride with them so they could “show him some cool stuff”.

After her son said no and tried to get past them, the two youths moved to stop him, which made her son turn around and “race down the track to Kiwi Rd”.

At first, the youths chased him and shouted at him to stop, but gave up.

The mother said her son arrived home very scared.

A young boy was approached on a shared walkway/cycleway yesterday. Photo / Grace Odlum

He said the youths had their faces covered with bandanas and described one as wearing a white Nike bandana and red pants and the other as wearing a red Puma bandana and black pants. They were riding a black and orange dirt bike.

“Our tamariki shouldn’t have to deal with this sort of thing when riding home,” the mother said, and she asked the community to please contact the police if they knew who the youths were.

A number of comments on the post claimed to have seen the same boys in other areas and wondered if they might have been caught on any security cameras.

A lot of the comments also praised the young boy for doing the right thing, with one person writing, “He needs a huge ‘well done’” and another writing, “He was very brave and did a good job to describe these guys”.

Other commenters are concerned the incident could have been predatory, with one commenter writing, “Attempting to entice or force a child to go somewhere with them does not make them bullies, it makes them predators.”

The mother warns others in the community to be vigilant and said the police are aware of the incident.