British toddler reunited with his mother after kidnap ordeal in Kuala Lumpur

A British toddler has been found ten kilometres from his Kuala Lumpur home after being kidnapped from his front garden.

20-month-old Freddie Joseph was taken from his house in Bangsar, an affluent Kuala Lumpur suburb, at 6:10pm local time yesterday. The toddler was found hungry and tired by Lake Titiwangsa, a park over ten kilometres from his home, by a taxi driver.

48-year-old Haris Mohd Nor said: “I just read a newspaper report that a boy was abducted. I could not believe that he is that boy. When I approached him, he kept quiet but was not that scared. He looked very exhausted.”

The boy has since been reunited with his mother, 38-year-old British expatriate Sarah Joseph, who attempted to fight off the kidnappers along with two passers-by, who initially managed to pull Freddie out of the car before they were threatened with a machete. Ms Joseph was then dragged along by the car for some metres as she attempted to rescue her son.

“During the incident…. Sarah Joseph, 38, had gone into the house after hearing some noise. She came out and saw a man grabbing her son and lunged at him screaming. A struggle ensued,” said Kuala Lumpa’s chief of CID, Datuk Ku Chin Wah, at a press conference.

Ms Joseph was praised for her actions by Nurul Izzah, MP for the Bangsar area, who said: “As a mom myself, I can imagine what Sarah Joseph had to endure yesterday. She was very brave and even went after the kidnappers to protect her child but they were armed and she was injured.”

Reports of the kidnapper, or kidnappers, are mixed, although all concur that at least one member of the attacking party was armed with a knife. Details of the car used to transport Freddie and its number plate are being circulated locally.

Police are acting with the belief that the child’s kidnappers knew his mother. Ku continued: “Until now, we don’t know their motives. We suspect that they know the family…. the mother did not recognise the man.”

There have been multiple recent cases of kidnaps or attempted kidnaps in the region. Three months ago a 28-year-old woman is alleged to have escaped being abducted in the same suburb, whilst a 12-year-old Dutch boy, Nayati Shamelin Moodliar, was kidnapped last year before being released after nearly a week after his parents paid the demanded ransom.

Abbie Cavendish