Categories
Advice News Policing

Facebook rumours and inaccurate postings

West Midlands Police have today quashed reports about a child abduction in Wednesfield after it was revealed this was nothing more than a rumour.

There has been a post doing the rounds on Facebook and Twitter all day that there has been an abduction by someone in a white van with a red dragon on the side. Every time it gets reposted it states a different age, or number of children, or town, dependant on the person that is posting it. In our case we keep getting notified that it has happened in Wednesfield.

The story originated that in Crown Point, Denton, Manchester a 15 year old girl was abducted and seems to have spread from there. While I can not comment if there was as actual abduction in that area, I can summarise that through Chinese whispers it is now being posted on our Facebook wall that it happened in Wood End, Wednesfield  – this is not the case.

We understand the need to draw attention to these cases where they are true and we would offer the full services of our Facebook page and website as an information portal for any event such as this were it true, but in this instance it is not. We would implore you to verify your facts before posting anything of such an alarmist nature on our Facebook wall, or anywhere else on the internet.  We are neither helping ourselves by scaring local parents or helping out the Manchester police with their investigation, should the Manchester rumour turn out to be true.

Thank you.

UPDATE:  Wolverhampton Police have dismissed this rumour on their Twitter account.

One reply on “Facebook rumours and inaccurate postings”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Skip to content