By ANEEKA SIMONIS
TWO Pakenham school girls were followed and photographed by a middle-aged man as they walked to school last week.
The 12-year-old and 16-year-old sisters were making their way to Pakenham Secondary College on their second day back on Monday 2 February when a man driving a blue commodore started circling them about 8.15am.
“He drove up and down five times as they walked up Eagle Drive between Ahern Road and the Avenue … stopped, pulled over and then drove around again,” the girl’s shaken mum recalled.
She said after doing around seven laps around the frightened girls, the man described as being between 35 – 50 years of age stopped his car and began taking pictures of the school girls on a wide-lens camera.
“They are scared to walk,” said the mum, who let her children walk to school for the first time that day due to her changed work schedule.
The incident lasted between five and 10 minutes until the girls managed to cross to the opposite side of the road and run away.
“Unfortunately the girls were scared and didn’t get the rego,” the mum said.
An Eagle Drive resident confirmed seeing the man with a camera following the girls, according to the Pakenham mum.
She said she reported the case to Pakenham police who took the incident “very seriously”, handing it to Dandenong’s Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT).
The man is described as being Caucasian, middle aged, overweight, with brown hair.
The girls believe he was driving a blue Commodore Sedan VE SV6 that was covered in dirt and had stickers on the back window.
“You don’t expect this type of thing to happen the first time they walk to school … it seems like it’s happening more and more,” the mum said.
The girls have begun using a busier route for their walk to school.
