6. 6 Statement by Ms Aimee Whitley
Statement by Ms Aimee Whitley, student at Oxford High School, taken by DS Anna Davenport (in the presence of her mother)
We were coming back from town along the path by the river. We turned left by the pond. Just after that I saw some men running and I heard shouting and I looked across the grass and saw a whole lot of people standing around a bench. Then three men ran across in front of us and I saw one of them throw something small into the bushes. We stopped and wondered what to do. The men were hidden in the trees. I could hear sounds come from there and then the men came back out. The two in running gear were holding the other one by his arms and pulling him along.
I heard a police siren and a police car drew up in Parks Road and two uniformed officers got out and came across to the group by the bench. I said to Katie that we ought to tell someone about the man throwing something in the bushes, so we started to go over there to talk to the police. But then some people came towards us shouting out something about a woman’s purse being stolen, so we started hunting in the bushes for it. Aimee found it and she picked it up very carefully with a plastic bag round her hand. We took it to the police and they put it in an evidence bag. The policeman talked to us and took our names, but he said he could not interview us formally without our parents being there. So we went home then.