A BOY aged 5 was taken from his garden by an older girl and led to a wood where a gang of children apparently tried to hang him, his cousin said yesterday.

Three boys and two girls aged 11 and 12 have been arrested on suspicion of the attempted murder of the boy, Anthony Brown, who is not related to any of his alleged attackers. Police in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, are looking for two or three more suspects.

The senior investigating officer said that Anthony had suffered serious injuries, including marks around his neck that could be “consistent with ligature marks” and bruises.

Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan said that the child was found wandering alone and clearly distressed in the Chickenley area of Dewsbury by his cousin on Tuesday evening.

Police believe that he was assaulted between 5.30pm and 6pm in woods behind the Earlsheaton Medical Centre in Dewsbury. The area backs on to parkland and is bordered by housing estates. Several paths run through it, some of which lead to den-like areas where children play.

Police visited the site yesterday and retrieved several items. Anthony was treated for his injuries at Dewsbury District Hospital and allowed home yesterday.

Mr Brennan said that it was too early to say whether Anthony was taken to the woods with an attack in mind. “He has got a number of bruises to his body and has a number of marks around his neck,” he said.

Anthony’s cousin, Tracey Jones, 22, said that she found him 200 yards from his home near a chip shop almost two hours after he had vanished. She said that he was wearing a blue T-shirt and jeans, had scratches on his arms and a bright red rope-mark and bruises around his neck.

She said last night: “I asked him, ‘What the hell happened?’ and he said, ‘Some boys and girls tied a rope around my neck and tried to tie me to a tree’. I asked, ‘Why did you go with them?’ and he said, ‘They wouldn’t let me go’. He hadn’t wanted to go, he was taken and then after doing what they did they abandoned him.”

She said that the boy was normally a “happy, bubbly little child” who did as he was told. He had been playing on a swing in his garden with a girl while his mother washed up. When Anthony failed to come in for his tea, friends and family searched nearby streets.

“His Mum had told him to stay where she could see him,” Ms Jones said. “She was washing up in the kitchen. She went to shout him in and he had gone. He was taken from the garden, he didn’t want to go — it was just like James Bulger.”

When Ms Jones took Anthony home, his mother, Terri Brown, alerted the police, who made their first arrests that evening. Last night Anthony’s father described his son as a “very active lad”. Mark Hinchliffe, who is separated from Anthony’s mother, said: “He loves playing about — he’s an active lad. He’s got loads of friends but something like this . . . you don’t know what to do, do you? “Apparently, he was taken from the garden, taken to some woods and I don’t know the rest of it,” he said.

A neighbour living close to the boy’s home said that she had seen the youngster looking “in a bad way”. Edna Gray, 79, said: “I saw his mum bringing him home last night. He was looking a bit dazed. She looked mad and she went to call the police and an ambulance arrived soon afterwards.”

Mrs Gray, who said Anthony’s mother had four other children, called him a “lovely boy” who had never gone off on his own before.

“He’s a nice lad, he talks to you and shows you his toys. He’s always playing with the little ones who are his own age but I’ve never known him to go off on his own or to play with older children,” she said.

The incident was 24 hours after the BBC screened the film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves in which Kevin Costner rescues a young boy from the threat of hanging. In 1999 the same film was linked to the death of a boy, 8, in New Zealand, and two years before there was speculation, later denied, that two children who hanged themselves in Hertfordshire had also watched the film.

West Yorkshire Police said that they were not aware that any of the children being questioned had watched the film on Monday but emphasised that the inquiry was in its early stages.

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