A man whose photograph was released by authorities over a suspected child abduction attempt in Sydney was only trying to help a toddler who looked “unsteady on his feet”, police say.
The father of the 19-month-old boy went to police after he saw a man aged, about 65, try to pick up his son, who was playing in a Darling Harbour park on Tuesday afternoon.
Police released a CCTV image of the man to accompany a call for public information.
On Thursday, they revealed the man had attended Bankstown police station to explain it was all a misunderstanding.
With the help of a translator, he said he was simply trying to help the boy because he looked “unsteady on his feet” and when the father assumed the worst, a language barrier prevented him from explaining the situation.
Detective Acting Inspector David Gates thanked the man for coming forward and said the boy’s family was satisfied the matter had been resolved.
“While in this case no offence was committed, police need to investigate all reports of this nature and treat them as serious until they are deemed not to be,” he said in a statement.
There has been a string of suspected child abduction attempts reported across Sydney over the past fortnight.
A man attempted to abduct a 15-month-old boy from the Macquarie Street Mall in Liverpool on May 25.
Two days later, a five-year-old girl was indecently assaulted by a man in Glebe in Sydney’s inner west.
On May 30, a three-year-old girl was targeted in a Leichhardt park by a man who took her by the hand before her mother yelled out to stop him.
The alleged attacker in Glebe and Leichhardt was described as being of Indian appearance and was wearing similar clothes.
Then at the beginning of June detectives launched a search in Summer Hill for a man after he pulled a knife as he approached an 11-year-old girl and tried to grab her.
-AAP