Walk on by Britain: Two little girls pretend to be lost in a busy shopping centre. So how many people stop to help? One. How many ignore their plight? More than SIX HUNDRED

The two girls stood for an hour in a busy shopping arcade

They were filmed as part of a social experiment for television

Astonishingly, only one person st oppe d to help them



Everyone else simply carried on going about their business



P assing couples even split apart to walk around the 'lost' girls

One little girl was clutching her favourite toy while her younger sister was sucking her thumb – and both looked utterly lost and forlorn.

In a bygone era, a concerned adult might have stopped to ask them where their mother was. But in a damning indictment of modern Britain, hundreds of busy people simply walked on by.

The girls stood for an hour on a Saturday morning in a busy shopping arcade looking for 'help', as part of a social experiment for television.

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Invisible: Even parents with pushchairs avoid Uma, seven, in London's Victoria Place shopping centre

Hidden cameras recorded Uma, seven, and Maya, five, who took it in turns to look lost.

Astonishingly, over the whole hour only one person, a grandmother, took a moment to find out if there was a problem. All of the 616 other passers-by completely ignored the girls.

Heartbreakingly for the mother of the sisters – who was watching from a hiding place nearby – passing couples even split apart to walk around either side of the 'lost' girls and people wheeling suitcases took evasive action to avoid Maya and Uma, not thinking to check if they needed help.

Yesterday the NSPCC said the results of the experiment were shocking and called on members of the public to step in if they saw a youngster looking lost.

ITN researchers chose Victoria Place shopping centre, next to London's bustling Victoria Station, to test the British public.

Maya and Uma agreed to help and were brought along by their mother Reshma Rumsey, who watched from behind a nearby pillar with a presenter. Uma went first, standing alone in the middle of the concourse, holding her pink doll and putting on a good act of being scared and vulnerable.

Vulnerable: Maya looks frightened as shoppers bustle past her in Victoria, central London

Under the gaze of the hidden cameras 25 yards away, dozens of shoppers and travellers bustled past. A mother with a pram manoeuvred around her, then a group of women pulling suitcases turned a blind eye.

After 20 minutes, not a single person had stopped to ask the seven-year-old if she was all right, even though some of them had plainly seen her.

Next, it was her five-year-old sister's turn. Maya stood sucking her thumb, and then tried kneeling down, gazing up forlornly at passing shoppers, but she too seemed to be invisible.

At last: This woman was the only person to stop and ask if Maya was all right

Eventually, a pensioner gave her a concerned look. At first, Pearl Pitcher, of Kent, who is in her seventies, carried on walking, but she soon turned around and came back to ask Maya if she was waiting for somebody.

Mrs Pitcher said later: 'She had stood too long by herself and no parent or friend came up to see her. I was very hesitant to come and ask her, and I walked past but I thought I must come back – just in case.

'I think the older generation would stop, but very cautiously, a bit like I was. I don't know about the younger generation. A lot of people walked by and didn't take any notice at all.'

Mrs Rumsey said she was 'gobsmacked' by seeing her daughters ignored by more than 600 members of the public.

The 39-year-old journalist said: 'When you see that little face looking so lost, and people are walking past, it is awful.

'I did not expect so few people to stop … it's shocking that people noticed a child on her own and they just walked past, whether it's through fear or because they didn't care or because they didn't notice. As a mother, to watch your child on their own, looking lost and needing help and watch people walk past is heartbreaking.'

Experts said the reluctance of the passers-by was partly explained by people being busy, and partly a fear – especially among men – of any help they offer a child being misinterpreted.

But the NSPCC said a child's welfare was more important than worrying about being labelled a 'stranger danger'.

A spokesman said: 'We have got to get a message out to adults that they have a responsibility to protect children and that must supersede any concern you have for other people's perception of why you are reaching out to help that child.'

* Little Girl Lost: A Police 5 Special will be shown on Channel 5 at 6.30pm tomorrow.

The price of paedophile hysteria

COMMENTARY by CAROL SARLER



Shaming? I'll say these pictures are shaming. But the shame goes far beyond the 616 people who ignored these girls.

The shame belongs to an entire nation that, within two generations, has turned on its head the golden rule that was drummed into me as a child: when in trouble, ask a grown-up.

Today, the child does not dare to ask – and the grown-up does not dare to answer. This is not because we care less about children.

Only last week Sport Relief raised record sums to help charities, most of them concerned with children, just as Children In Need betters its takings every year.

Sport Relief raised record sums to help charities, most of them concerned with children, at the same time as paedophile hysteria is gripping the nation

And yet, even while we seek to help, we also harm. The over-imaginative minds of adult Britain are in literally hysterical thrall to paedophilia, to the idea that danger lurks in the soul of every passing stranger, while the truth – you know, facts and suchlike – is rejected without reason.

I have lost count of the times that I have written that the number of abductions and deaths of children at the hands of strangers has remained constant since the Fifties (six or seven a year). Or pointed out that, given that our population has grown, this is effectively a reduction.

Or forcefully reiterated the dreadful reality that the physical risk to children is infinitely more likely to lie within their own homes. Nobody wants to know. They've got their bogeyman fixed firmly in their heads.

So this is the result: although the five-year-old was in fact an actress who proved a point for a television documentary, while her mother watched from nearby, we now know exactly what would happen should that be your child or mine.

It is impossible to believe that in a civilised, compassionate society there weren't many passers-by who wanted to help – yet too great was their fear of being thought to be a 'kiddie-fiddler', either by other passers-by or indeed by the little girl herself.

Pernicious as this fear is, it is growing apace. I have a friend who organises large festivals where, inevitably, children get lost.

Yet instructions to staff have become super-stern in recent years: if you see such a child, no matter how great their distress, you may not approach – and you certainly may not touch, so the instinctive cuddle you ache to offer is a no-no.

Instead, they have to radio the location of the child to a central control, who will dispatch an 'accredited' member of staff to the scene. And if that means the child screams and panics for another 20 minutes? So be it.

Perhaps there are some among us who feel proud that we take 'such good care' of our children. I think the kindest word for that pride is misguided; in harsher moments, like when looking at these pictures, I wonder if we aren't sacrificing our children for our own excitement.

We may fear the bogeyman – nevertheless, we thrill to him, too; Hollywood has made millions on the back of that thrill. But here in real life, he looms dangerously large.

It's time, I suggest, to return to the more mundane, sensible basics: don't take sweets from strangers, don't get in their cars and no, you don't want to go to see their puppy.

Beyond that?

When in trouble, ask a grown-up.





