A MOTHER today told of the terror she felt when she received a desperate phone call from her young daughter saying a man in a balaclava was trying to abduct her.

Nine-year-old Joanne Walker foiled the attacker by hitting him with her umbrella as he chased her along a road.

Denise Walker, 36, received Joanne's frantic call only minutes after dropping her daughter off close to the family's home.

"She was screaming down the phone, saying: 'Someone's chasing me'," Denise said.

"I felt sick. I was panicking like mad because I knew I was only four minutes away.

"I just said: 'Get into your friend's garden'.

"When I got there, she was shaking and crying, and so was I - with panic."

Joanne returned to her home in Eversley Mount, Sherburn-in-Elmet, near Selby, after her mother left her to walk to a friend's house, because she had forgotten her umbrella.

As she walked past Eversley Avenue at about 7.40pm on Wednesday she saw a man watching her from further down the street.

"Then he shouted and started chasing her.

"I heard him running and he was up right behind me and tried to grab me," Joanne said. "He was shouting: 'Come here little girl,' when he was running after me."

With the man only inches away from her, Joanne turned around and hit him on the head with her umbrella, knocking him off balance. The man, who was dressed all in black, with a hooded top, a ski-mask style balaclava and gloves, fled down an alleyway that runs alongside Sherburn High School.

Denise said: "It shook her up a hell of a lot.

"Luckily she had the common sense to turn round and whack him. If she did not have that umbrella it could have been a lot worse. He could have had her.

"I'm still very worried. I make sure she has got her phone with her even if she is going to see her friends. It has made me anxious."

Denise warned other parents of children at Athelstan Primary School, where Joanne is in Year 5, of the danger. I hope it never happens again to anybody," she said.

"The worst thing is you do not know who it was, whether it's someone from Sherburn and whether they will come back."

Detective Constable Jim Allan, of Selby CID, said: "We're treating it as suspicious and we're asking anyone who has any knowledge of this or who knows who this man was to contact the police."

He added: "We're concerned about his intentions and whether he intended to run past her or to scare her or abduct her.

"We're anxious to know who this man is and what his intentions were."

The attempted abduction follows reports last week of a balaclava-clad man in Coventry who tried to lure eight children into his car in separate incidents in the city.

DC Allan said: "We're not necessarily linking the two, we just want to know what this man's intentions were."

Anyone with information about the Sherburn incident should contact DC Allan on 0845 6060247.

Updated: 10:27 Monday, October 17, 2005