Police investigate bag snatching incident involving two young children

Police say they are deeply concerned for the welfare of two young children involved in a bag snatching incident at Southbank.

Police have CCTV footage of a woman and two boys, believed to be aged as young as three and five, entering a restaurant last Saturday night.

First Constable Anthony Kilkenny told Neil Mitchell it’s a shocking set of circumstances.

‘She’s spoken to staff there briefly and we understand that the conversation was that she said a group of friends were already there in another part of the restaurant,’ he said.

‘And then the children run upstairs and she’s tried to get them back.

‘She knows where they’ve gone gone and she’s gone to a separate  part of the restaurant while the two children have gone and looked for a handbag.

‘One of the kids has taken the bag while the customer was distracted.’

First Constable Kilkenny said it was a confronting incident for police.

‘We do hold concerns for the kids welfare,’ he said.

3AW Mornings psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg said it was a worrying incident.

‘What you’ve got here is the normalising of shoplifting,’ he said.

‘The job of a parent is to teach children right from wrong, and clearly this isn’t doing that. There may well be a significant impact on their moral compass growing up.

‘We know that will make them a major risk factor for future criminology in terms of themselves and of course their schooling, who they hang out with, so the impact could be profound.’