{"id":922236,"date":"2026-10-09T20:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T20:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/922236\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T20:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T20:32:12","slug":"sa-police-defend-considered-decision-not-to-alert-public-to-alleged-attempted-abduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/922236\/","title":{"rendered":"SA police defend \u2018considered decision\u2019 not to alert public to alleged attempted abduction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Australia\u2019s police commissioner has defended a decision not to alert the public to a frightening <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/australia-news\/sa\/teen-charged-with-abducting-girl-from-grandparents-20261008-p613pe.html\" class=\"sc-iRgEWu hHENWX\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">alleged attempted abduction<\/a> in Adelaide\u2019s northern suburbs.<\/p>\n<p>Barry Peter Smith was on the run for nearly 24 hours after allegedly trying to snatch a child.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/d17054042d303a683da70f783670baa0cd40e6f6d5b87868e9af7324b94d33ed.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">The alleged attempted abduction at 7pm on Monday saw officers make an arrest the following night.\u00a09News<\/p>\n<p>But parents in the area were not told about the incident until after his arrest.<\/p>\n<p>The alleged attempted abduction at 7pm on Monday saw officers arrest Smith the following night.<\/p>\n<p>But it wasn\u2019t until Wednesday morning that the public was alerted.<\/p>\n<p>Shock at the alleged crime has turned to anger as parents demand answers for why there was no public information until after the arrest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt makes me feel sick to my stomach and being so close, living across the road and children were there, from morning to night,\u201d resident Laura Walker said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just think that\u2019s too long, anything could have happened to that child, another child.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s just wrong, you can\u2019t do that, we need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Police Commissioner Grant Stevens on Friday defended the decision but would not elaborate on why parents were not told.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/9d180da39d83463ca28cffd22d8f1503cba06522c864247d92a967336abe063b.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">South Australia Police Commissioner Grant Stevens defended the decision not to alert the public sooner.\u00a0Kelly Barnes<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe decision not to make any public statement was not just one of oversight or neglect, it was a considered decision,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we all, rightly, fear for the safety of young children \u2026 there were legitimate operational reasons that resulted in the decision not to make a public statement concerning the incident.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith lived only streets away from the park where police allege he was caught on security cameras watching the two young girls before the attack.<\/p>\n<p>Smith will be back in court next week, where he could be released on home detention bail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Australia\u2019s police commissioner has defended a decision not to alert the public to a frightening alleged attempted&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-922236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}