Hunt for boy, nine, 'bundled into boot of car by man'

Onlookers said they saw the child, who is thought to be aged around nine, struggling as he was pushed into the red Vauxhall Astra-sized car in the Woodrow area of Redditch, Worcestershire, by a man at around 7pm last night.

Officers immediately launched a Child Rescue Alert on local television and radio stations asking the public for help tracing the boy.

At a press conference today, acting superintendent Kevin Purcell said officers were continuing to investigate the incident, even though there had still not been any reports of a missing boy.

He said: "It is paramount that we investigate this until we are sure we do not have a missing child.

"There are witnesses to a number of circumstances around the incident and we continue to treat it as an abduction."

The boy is described as white, 4ft tall with short brown hair. He was wearing a blue T-shirt and dark blue shiny tracksuit trousers.

A spokeswoman for the force said: "The witness saw a child being dragged into the boot of a vehicle.

"The child was struggling and that's the information that we have based our inquiry on, a reported abduction, although we haven't had any reports of a missing child."

Police hope that the new American-style alert scheme will help provide crucial information in the search for the boy.

It is used only where certain criteria are met, including that there is reason to believe a child has been abducted and that they may be in imminent danger of serious harm or death.

Only recently introduced in Britain, the scheme works by interrupting local TV programmes with flashing messages across the bottom of screens and regular alerts being issued on radio.

In exceptional circumstances the alerts can go out every 15 minutes for four hours.

The alert system is based on the Amber Alert scheme introduced in Texas in 1996 following the abduction and murder of nine year old Amber Hagerman.

It was first used in Britain in July 2003 when Sussex Police used it to track down missing six-year-old Summer Haipule. She went missing from her home in Brighton and was found 14 hours later asleep under a bed in a neighbour's house.