Big response to Crimewatch appeal

Last Thursday's BBC Crimewatch devoted a generous part of the programme to a re-enactment by child actresses of the moment on the evening of Sunday, May 18 when a man grabbed an eight year-old round the throat as she played with a friend.

The programme showed how the girls decided to meet in leafy Woodsgate Avenue, the victim approaching the avenue from London Road, her friend from Springfield Road.

The man police have described as a monster tried to make off with the victim after telling her "I want to rape you" but ran from the scene when her arriving friend screamed.

Detective Inspector Trevor Bowles, head of Rother CID, travelled with three detectives to the BBC studios.

D.I. Bowles joined colleagues in manning the phone lines there after appearing on the programme. Four other detectives manned phone lines at Bexhill police station.

D.I. Bowles said: "We are absolutely swamped! We don't know which way to turn.

"We have about 260 messages and frankly it is now a huge task to sort out the wheat from the chaff. It is a question of finding which messages are going to take us forward."

The victim said the attacker had an accent but because she could not identify it this was not featured in the programme.

Police were initially encouraged when a number of callers said, independently, that they knew of men answering the offender's description - and had an accent.

But D.I. Bowles said: "We now have Irish accents, Scots accents, Welsh accents -even a South African accent."

He is now hoping to enlarge his investigation team still further to work through the Crimewatch response.