A MUM from Bexley says she feels like becoming a vigilante after three men in Dartford reportedly tried to snatch her 16-year-old daughter.

The 46-year-old, who does not wish to be named, says her daughter and an 18-year-old fellow dancer at the Reynolds Training Academy in Kent Road were the victims of an attempted abduction after leaving the centre on Monday at around 3pm.

The pair were heading across Prospect Place car park to get to the older girl’s car parked nearby, when they saw a grey minibus with blacked-out windows and its rear door ajar sat near Pizza Hut.

As they passed by the occupants started banging on the windows and when the girls didn’t respond, one of three men inside began shouting at them to “f***ing get in the van”.

The younger girl’s mother, who lives with her daughter at an address near Danson Park in Bexley, told News Shopper: “The main man was shouting so aggressively he wasn’t bothered about being heard.

“It made my daughter realise they had to run.

“As they started to run the car actually did two or three laps of the car park to try to get to my daughter and this other girl.

“They literally chased her and it was the aggressiveness of the fellas that really scared her.”

News Shopper:

The e-mail to Reynolds Academy parents posted on Twitter yesterday.

The dancers managed to escape and reported the incident to police but just the following day they both claim to have seen the same group of men gathered outside the Reynolds Academy at around 1pm.

The 16-year-old’s mother said: “They both froze. The men realised my daughter had clocked onto them because they started acting suspiciously.

“They stood in front of her face and looked her up and down and started speaking to her in a foreign language.

“She then saw them get into the same van they tried to get her in the day before.

“My daughter says they were in their early 40s and seemed Bulgarian or Romanian.”

The teenager’s mum says her daughter has found it difficult to deal with what has happened.

She said: “She doesn’t want to talk about it anymore because when she does her eyes well up.

“It’s frightened her because she doesn’t understand how people could do these things.

“It’s made me want to become a vigilante and take things into my own hands.

The girls were reportedly chased across Prospect Place car park. 

“My brother said to me ‘we’ll take a van down there and smash the living daylights out of those fellas’.”

The Reynolds Academy has e-mailed parents to warn them about the “serious and very real threat” to students following the incident.

The e-mail, parts of which were posted on Twitter yesterday, said: “There are a group of foreign-sounding men driving round in a grey minibus with blacked out windows.

“Given this serious and very real threat we would ask that you do not allow any of your children, no matter what age, to travel to or from the studio on their own or even in small groups without an adult.

“Please be assured that the police are taking this very seriously”

Kent Police has issued a warning over four cases of girls aged 12 to 18 in Dartford being approached by strangers in cars in recent days, including one incident in Prospect Place.

Patrols are being stepped up and residents are asked to remain vigilant but not to panic as such approaches are rare.

Have been approached in this way in Dartord or know someone who has? Ring 01689 885702, e-mail tim.macfarlan@london.newsquest.co.uk or tweet @NewsShopperTim