Police probe attempted abduction of Caulfield Grammar student

The principal of Caulfield Grammar has issued a warning to parents after the attempted abduction of a student at a bus stop on Wednesday morning.

Police are investigating the attempted abduction of a Caulfield Grammar student. Picture: David Geraghty

An abduction attempt of a Caulfield private school student at a bus stop on Wednesday morning is under investigation by police.

The Caulfield Grammar student, who was on the way to school, was approached by an adult in a black vehicle who asked them to get in the car but they refused.

The school’s deputy principal Meg Adem put out a statement to parents at 2pm, advising them of the attempt.

“I write to alert you to a reported incident concerning an adult approaching a student from our campus and asking them to get into their vehicle,” she wrote.

“The incident involved a secondary school student who was approached by a driver in a vehicle as they were waiting at the bus stop. The student refused.”

Ms Adem thanked the parent who shared the information and said the student was being supported. “It is a timely reminder to have constant conversations with students about how they respond to unexpected encounters,” she wrote.

As a result, students in all classes at the co-ed school were given age-appropriate conversations about safety with teachers.

The school’s principal put out a statement to parents at 2pm, warning them of the attempt. Picture: David Geraghty

Children walking in the vicinity of Melbourne schools were approached on four separate occasions by men driving white vans last year, with most of these incidents remaining unsolved at the end of January.

The incidents occurred in Blackburn, Boronia, Doncaster and Tullamarine over the course of 15 days in mid-November last year.

Students have also been the target of other attacks in recent years, including 15-year-old Glenhuntly Secondary College student Benjamin Phikhohpoom who was left with life-altering injuries after being abducted while walking home from school.

He was attacked by a gang of knife-wielding teen thugs who pushed him out of their moving car in September 2023.

Students from Xavier College, Scotch College, Elwood College, Carey Grammar, Sacre Coeur and St Bede’s College were also the targets of robberies near their schools in 2023, leading police to step up patrols in Melbourne’s eastern and southeast suburbs.

Child abduction reports reached a five-year high in Victoria last year, new police figures reveal.

The Crime Statistics Agency recorded 53 child abduction victims in the 12 months to September 2024 – only six of whom were linked to family violence conflicts such as a child being taken by a parent amid a custody dispute.

However police said random child abductions were “extremely rare”, with youth-on-youth standovers and brief encounters where children are grabbed by strangers but not taken accounting for many of the incidents.