Television and radio broadcasts were interrupted last night to deliver a special alert amid fears a nine-year-old boy was abducted by a middle-aged man driving a car.
Media organisations were alerted soon after the child snatch as part of a national scheme launched last year.
It is one of the first times the newly launched Child Rescue Alert system has been used.
The boy was last seen getting into a red Vauxhall Astra-sized car in Tredington Close in the Woodrow area of Redditch, Worcestershire, at around 7.15pm along with a man aged between 45 and 50.
Based on the Amber Alert system in place in the US, which has helped in the recovery of 311 children in 11 years, the system involves radio and television stations broadcasting messages every 15 minutes for four hours.
When it was rolled out across the UK earlier this year, police said in order to ensure the system is not over-used it would only be engaged in exceptional circumstances.
West Mercia Police appealed last night for any information regarding the boy who is white, about 4ft tall, with cropped brown hair and dark eyes, possibly brown.
Detectives in Portugal were criticised in the wake of Madeleine McCann's disappearance last month for not employing the child rescue alert system.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article