A MUM spoke of her horror at learning a man had tried to grab her daughter.

Police were yesterday questioning a 40-year-old man on suspicion of attempting to take a child after the alleged incident in Rose Hill, Oxford.

Nine-year-old Chloe Hyka, of Asquith Road, was playing outside with her friends on Wednesday evening when she said a man approached her.

She said he asked her to come to his house and grabbed her before she managed to escape his grasp.

The Rose Hill Primary School pupil said: “He came over to me, stroked my back and said ‘come to my house’ for two hours.

“I was really scared. I want to play outside but I don’t feel safe, I feel really sad about it.”

The incident, which police are treating as an attempted abduction, happened in Asquith Road at about 5.45pm.

Chloe’s mum Lisa Davis said: “I was changing my baby Mya’s nappy in the living room when Chloe ran into the conservatory in tears. I sensed something was very wrong straight away.”

The 26-year-old and her boyfriend, Stewart Davenport, 24, said they ran out of the house and shouted at a man in the street before he fled.

Mother-of-four Miss Davis said she would not allow her daughter to play on the road again until she was older.

She said: “I feel scared but also angry about it. Chloe and my eldest son Kyle will have to play in the garden now, or have friends round.”

Chloe added that two of her friends, both girls, also ran away from the man.

Her grandmother, Sandra Davis, 57, also of Rose Hill, said: “I just couldn’t believe it.

“My grand-daughter is a very happy and active child and we’re all just so shocked by it.”

Neighbours said they were concerned to hear about the attempted abduction.

Sharran Rapley, 47, of Asquith Road and a mother-of-10 said she was now worried about her children’s safety.

She said: “It’s not nice to hear these things at all. Normally the older kids look out for the smaller ones playing on Asquith Road.”

But taxi driver Amjid Parvez, 45, who lives next door to Chloe’s family, said: “It’s not safe here and my children can always play in the back garden.”

The 40-year-old arrested man was last night being quizzed by police on suspicion of attempting to take a child so as to remove her from a person having lawful control. Investigating officer Det Sgt Matthew Jarman from Oxford Force CID said the incident was not being linked to an attempted abduction in Blackbird Leys last month.

  • The family was hit by tragedy in 2010 when Mrs Davis’s brother, David Cox, 56, was killed just off Ashhurst Way on June 26, 2010, when a single punch triggered a fatal haemorrhage. Jonathan Newton, then 18 and of Spencer Crescent, Rose Hill, was later jailed for three years after admitting manslaughter.