Kerre Woodham: Why did no one stop and ask?

The parents of Lucas Ward, Jessica and Damon, with Inspector Sam Aberahama. Photo / Alan Gibson

It's a sad commentary on our community that a 4-year-old boy can go wandering around the streets of Gisborne and not one person - not one adult - thought to approach him and ask him where his mum was.

Lucas Ward went missing from his home in Kaiti on Tuesday afternoon: his grandmother was minding him and one minute he was there, the next he wasn't.

Apparently, he's a confident little boy and is prone to wandering, so it was unlikely he was crying and confused as he walked around the streets of Gisborne.

He may have looked like a little dude on a mission to others, one who knew exactly where he was going. But he was 4. Barefoot and 4.

Four-year-olds shouldn't be on the streets alone. Surely everybody knows that. There have been six sightings of a little boy wandering alone so why didn't one of those six people think to approach him when they saw him?

If they were paranoid about being perceived as a kiddy fiddler, they could have phoned the police and asked them to come round and check on him.

It may not have been Lucas these people saw, but they say they saw a child alone.

And not one of them bothered to check on his welfare.

It's not paedophiles lurking in bushes that will harm our kids.

It's apathy and turning a blind eye when we see something that we know is not right.