A STARTLING communication breakdown meant alerts over child abduction attempts were not passed on to police.

Now a furious community is asking: "Why weren't we told?"

The Daily Echo can reveal that just two days before a man attempted to snatch a 12-year-old girl walking in Portswood Road, Swaythling, a nearby school had sent a letter home to parents warning them of an abduction scare.

Head teacher of Bassett Green Primary School, Jennifer Larsson, knew of an attempted grab sometime last week, when a man was seen trying to entice a girl into a dark coloured Jeep.

She thought it had been reported - but amazingly, the police and the council were never informed.

It also emerged yesterday that there could have been as many as two other attempted abductions before Wednesday's terrifying near-miss for an 11-year-old girl, whose attacker fled after she managed to kick him in the shins.

Parents have listed attacks in Bassett Green Road and Burgess Road, on either side of the Flowers Estate, in the last two weeks.

Mum of eight Kay Lang, 41, said: "The incident on Wednesday is about the fourth or fifth attempt and obviously there are going to be some more.

"This man isn't going to stop until he's abducted a child.

"It would be so traumatic. I have been living here for 16 years and there's never been a scare like this before. Everyone needs to be on high alert."

Church leaders at St Alban's parish centre, which runs a Sunday school for youngsters, knew nothing of the attack, nor did the Flower Roads Residents' and Tenants' Association.

Anita Baker, secretary of the association, said the group could have warned residents across the estate by putting up posters or leaflet-dropping.

"If these things are happening, why haven't we been told? We would have a committee meeting and decide a course of action.

"It's all well and good us being here but we have to have the support of everybody as well."

Det Sgt Richard Rowledge, heading the investigation for Bitterne CID, said: "We haven't had any record of any other attacks. I've even spoken to officers at the station, who would be the first to hear of it, and they haven't been told anything.

"If these incidents have happened, they certainly haven't been reported to us.''

A spokesman for the school said the head teacher had acted in good faith by putting out the abduction warning.

"The school was made aware by a parent of an alleged incident in the area last week and issued a letter to parents to make them aware of the need to be more vigilant," she said.

"The school discussed reporting the matter to the police with the parents."

Yesterday officers were conducting house-to-house inquir-ies in Bluebell Road over Wed-nesday's incident - but Det Sgt Rowledge said he was not linking it to Sunday's incident at this stage.

Anyone with information about any incidents should call Bitterne CID on 0845 045 4545.