Police hunt serial sex offender after attacks

File photo / Richard Robinson

Police are hunting a "brazen" serial sex offender believed to have attacked two young girls and a woman in the past two months.

In one attack, an eight-year-old was sexually violated while her six-year-old sister screamed for help.

South Auckland police say they have concerns "for the escalating nature and frequency of offending" after the series of "possibly related sexual attacks".

They have warned Mangere residents to be vigilant and to walk their children to and from school after the assaults around a walkway running between Cape Road and Mascot Avenue.

The first attack took place on September 12 when a man dragged a 12-year-old girl from the walkway, near Mangere Pools, and indecently assaulted her.

Just over a month later, on October 19, the eight-year-old was attacked while walking home from school with her sister.

Detective Senior Sergeant Daryl Harper said the sisters were between Cape Road and Mascot Avenue in Mangere when the older girl was attacked.

"She was taken to the ground and sexually violated while her younger sister screamed for help," Mr Harper said.

"The victim's father heard his daughter's cries for help and entered the walkway from a house nearby. He saw a male and chased him while he fled on foot on Windrush Close Mangere into a nearby park. He then disappeared from sight."

The attacker was described as Polynesian and wearing a black baseball cap and white hooded sweatshirt with a dark collar.

Three days later a woman, 28, was pushing her son in a pram on the same walkway when a man grabbed her top.

She punched out at him and the man fled.

Police said the woman described the man as "a male Polynesian aged 18-20 years, 5.5ft in height and wearing a dark green hoodie sweat shirt and dark jeans".

"Police have also received recent reports of an unidentified male who has been approaching young females in this walkway and asking to touch them in a sexual way," Mr Harper said.

"Police urge the Mangere Community in and around this area to be vigilant and parents to accompany their children to and from school.

"Furthermore to come forward with any information they have in regard to these brazen attacks on vulnerable young children."

- NZHERALD STAFF