New documents reveal children being grabbed at, coaxed and filmed by strangers outside Canberra schools.
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Internal correspondence between senior ACT education directorate staff and principals, released on Monday under freedom of information, show schools have been dealing with frequent reports of strangers approaching children outside their grounds since the start of the year.
It comes as ACT Policing last week announced a special taskforce set up in response to the incidents was now investigating a 20th case of alleged approaches to children.
The documents released on Monday include incident reports, emails to principals and communication between directorate staff following incidents.
One of the documents included a heavily-redacted account of children screaming and running to the toilets after a person approached them while they were dancing near the schoool's boundary fence.
The account said the children "went near [the person], squatted down" before they [the person] "pulled [their] arm through the fence".
Another incident involved a person telling a student, who was waiting at a bus stop, to get into their van because the bus had broken down.
One report detailed how two adults had taken "photos and or videos of students in the playground", while another recounted how a person told students to come to his car because he had lollies.
In one instance, an unnamed school enacted a "wet weather plan" and closed its playground after students reported an adult calling out to them from over the fence.
As of August 23, the territory's education directorate had received 28 individual reports of "stranger related incidents", 14 of which included "actual approaches made towards students", according to one email.
The documents show the directorate's deputy director general Meg Brighton raised the alarm to school principals on May 29 in response to incidents the week before, after Fairfax Media reported on a man attempting to lure a primary school student into his car to see a puppy.
Ms Brighton emailed principals again on June 8, asking them to notify parents of a "number of incidents" where "male strangers approached school children enticing them to their car or away from school grounds".
"These unfortunate incidents are a good reminder to us all to help our children understand the importance of stranger safety and the need to report any unusual incidents or approaches to staff immediately," the email said.
ACT Policing last month launched a special taskforce in response to the reports of child approaches.
Three men have since appeared before ACT Magistrates Court charged with alleged acts of indecency.
One man, Russell Dennis Burgess, pleaded guilty to two charges of acts of indecency after he indecently exposed himself to an eight-year-old at a Canberra school.
The incident was referred to in one of the newly-released documents, detailing how students "screamed and ran to the teacher" after the 41-year-old had allegedly asked the children if they wanted to see "his magic trick".
Taskforce Tydeus has investigated 20 reports of alleged indecency since February, including a report last week that a man had called out to several young children in a playground in Lyons.
Fairfax Media has approached ACT Policing and the education directorate for comment.
