Mother saved girl lured by Net man

A mother yesterday described the moment when she realised the "boy" her 13-year-old daughter had arranged to meet through an internet chatroom was a middle-aged man.

A mother yesterday described the moment when she realised the "boy" her 13-year-old daughter had arranged to meet through an internet chatroom was a middle-aged man.

The woman, from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, who asked that she and the girl not be identified, believed that if she had not gone with the teenager to the rendezvous "we may not still have our daughter now". Although the man, 47 and from the North-east, was arrested, he was not charged, as Thames Valley Police concluded that no crime had been committed.

He originally claimed to be 15 when he exchanged messages with the girl. After developing the relationship through a long exchange of messages, the man asked the schoolgirl to send photographs before arranging to meet her in Milton Keynes. After dropping her daughter, the woman went to park, leaving the girl talking to her "friend" on a mobile. "I came back ... and suddenly saw an older man talking on another mobile ... I knew she was talking to him when I heard him say her name ... I said: 'You are not 17' and he answered 'Yes I am' but then admitted he wasn't, and I took her [the daughter] away immediately."