A man in a black car ‘asked where her son was going and offered him a lift’
Line of Duty actress Sherise Blackman has revealed that three men tried to kidnap her 11-year-old son, criticising the police for their failure to investigate.
Blackman, who played firearms officer Ruby ‘Jonesy’ Jones in the police drama, said that her son was walking home from school in Beckenham, Bromley, when two men on the street and another man in a black car tried to grab him on Friday 30 April.
In a post on Instagram, the actress described how the men tried to abduct her son, chasing him into the park before he “ran into the basketball courts to two older teenagers for help.”
Speaking to the Standard she said that the two teenagers blocked the entrance and told her son to run home.
Blackman said: “He did say ‘I’m going home’ and the man then said ‘hop in, I’ll give you a ride’ at which point my son was like that’s not normal and he kind of started to hop foot it away.
“The two men then followed him into the tennis court and said to the teenage boys ‘oh he’s with us’ at which point he [Ms Blackman’s son] said ‘I don’t know them’.”
When he got home, he was unsurprisingly “really shaken up, really scared” and Blackman and her husband immediately called the police when he told them what had happened.
However Blackman also told the paper that she felt as though the police were trying to “fob it off” when they took a statement from her son, and that he interaction with the police had left her “very dissatisfied.”
She said: “They were asking questions like have you got any issues with other boys and do you have beef with other kids.
“I could see where they were going with this and I was like no it wasn’t that. My son is a very smart little boy – he sensed danger. But they were trying to fob it off.”
Blackman said that they were then told no investigation could take place as a crime had not been committed.
“They made my son go through the whole rigmarole of explaining it and the poor thing was really nervous, only to say a crime hasn’t actually been committed,” she said.
“They said they’ll let the local area departments know and if anything happens again they can look into it.”
The Mail reports though that detectives have now begun investigating the incident again since the actress went to the press with her story.
Blackman’s husband George, told the publication: “Police are now looking into what happened. We had a call from a detective today – after the story appeared in the press.
“They said they were sorry and that they were now investigating what happened.”
The Met Police had initially said: “Police were called at 16:40hrs on Friday, 30 April to reports of two males acting suspiciously in Whitmore Road, Beckenham. Officers arranged to take a statement from the complainant. No suspects were identified.
“The investigation has been closed; an intelligence report was recorded and should any further evidential opportunities arise this decision will be reviewed.”
