A 14-year-old Whakatane girl was attacked an unknown man as she walked to school.
Senior Sergeant Bruce Jenkins said the girl was walking near the pedestrian bridge on Awatapu Lagoon at 7.45am yesterday when she was grabbed.
"As she broke free from the man, he fell off his bike," Mr Jenkins said.
Another man walking near the lagoon came to her aid.
The offender is a European man in his late 30s, with light brown hair, flat on top and frizzy at the bottom, and with facial hair under his chin. He is of medium height and build, and was wearing a baggy, creamy tan-coloured hoodie and baggy polar fleece pants of a similar colour.
