Man 'photographed girls' at Bunnings, including an eight-year-old while shopping with her family
Police suspect more girls were allegedly photographed at the Bunnings store at the weekend and have appealed for families to come forward.
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A 10-year-old boy is being praised for whisking his younger sister to safety and alerting his parents to a man who had allegedly indecently photographed at Bunnings store.
Disturbing images of unidentified children taken at Bunnings at North Mackay were later uncovered on a mobile phone, which included several of the eight-year-old girl, following a police raid on the 25-year-old man’s residence.
Detective Senior Sergeant Emma Novosel said the girls in the photographs were aged between five and 15 and were likely to have known the man was taking photos of them in the aisles at Bunnings on Saturday, September 5.
He was not an employee of the hardware chain.
“An examination of that phone identified a further series of photos of seven young girls and teenagers and they were all taken around the same time at that Bunnings location,” Snr Sgt Novosel told reporters on Friday.
“The man concerned was so close to some of those girls they would at least know the photos were being taken.”
Snr Sgt Novosel said investigators had traced the man’s movements by scouring the store’s CCTV footage where he loitered in the aisles between 11am to midday.
“The photographs we’ve seized, or that we’ve recovered from the man's phone, indicate they were taken in the aisles. There were not photographs taken in rest rooms,” she said
“We’re confident there was no contact offending.”
Originally published as Man 'photographed girls' at Bunnings, including an eight-year-old while shopping with her family