A MAN tried to snatch a six-year-old child from a teenage girl as they walked the streets of Eston in Middlesbrough, police said yesterday.

The six-year-old girl was walking with her 16-year-old companion in Sandmoor Close at about 9pm on Friday when the man approached.

He held out his hands as if to grab the child but the teenager gathered her up and ran down an alley to safety.

The scruffy-looking man was aged 45 to 55, with a flabby stomach, broad fat arms with large hands and a double chin. He had a large nose and was unshaven with grey and dark growth. He was bald apart from tufts of grey hair around the sides and wore square-shaped glasses with guards at the sides, like safety glasses. He had a small earring in his left ear and wore a navy tracksuit-type top and bottoms, and dark trainers.

He drove a silver and blue four-door car with black bumpers which had a car freshener on the front mirror and a nodding dog on the dashboard.

Anyone with any information is asked to call Sergeant Janet Fraser on (01642) 301926.