The mum locked her and her sons inside the supermarket toilet after claiming she was sexually assaulted in broad daylight and is now too scared to leave home
A mum was forced to flee to Lidl after a man allegedly followed her and her children and sexually assaulted her in the street.
Mum-of-two Megan Hollimould locked her and her sons inside the supermarket toilet after claiming she was sexually assaulted in broad daylight.
Megan, 21, says she was walking along Ladysmith Road in Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, at around 4pm on Wednesday when she was approached by a man and allegedly sexually assaulted.
Since the ordeal, Megan says she has been left too scared to leave her house.
She was walking with her two sons – aged one and three – in a pushchair to Lidl after visiting Weelsby Woods for the day when she says the man approached her.
After initially asking for “a hug”, Megan claims the stranger sexually assaulted her several times along Ladysmith Road before she managed to flee and take refuge inside the toilet in Lidl, where he had followed her to.
Megan has waived her right to anonymity to make others aware of what happened.
She told Grimsby Live : “There was a man on Ladysmith Road and he was saying something but I couldn’t tell it was to me or someone else, so I carried on walking.
“Then he stopped me in my tracks and asked if he could have a hug, to which I said no. I just told him I’m not a huggy person, because I was trying to be nice. I said to him, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go’.”
She said the man then became “agitated” and began following her before stopping in front of the pushchair to prevent her from walking away.
“He kept asking me for a hug or a kiss and just got more and more agitated,” she added.
“Then he started touching my chest, bum and hips. I told him to please not touch me and with that, he started grabbing hold of the pushchair. It was awful. And this happened continuously until we got to Lidl. People were just driving past and watching.”
When Megan and her sons reached Lidl, she said she was forced to lock the three of them inside the toilet to escape the man. He allegedly then proceeded to bang on the door repeatedly and attempted to get inside the toilet.
“He was there outside grabbing hold of the door handle and shouting to me to open the door,” she said.
Megan said she contacted a friend to come and help her and a family member then contacted the police to inform them what had happened.
“It’s just made me feel really scared. I haven’t left the house since it happened,” she said.
A 26-year-old man was subsequently arrested on suspicion of sexual assault following the incident. He has since been released as police conduct an investigation.
A spokesman for Humberside Police confirmed they had investigated the incident and an arrest had been made.
“It is reported that a woman was walking along Ladysmith Road, Grimsby when she was approached by a man and sexually assaulted,” the force said in a statement.
“The woman is then believed to have sought help in a nearby supermarket and the man was arrested in the area following a prompt response from officers. The man has since been released whilst officers continue to conduct lines of enquiry.
“We are now appealing for anyone who was in the vicinity at the time of the incident or moments prior, and saw anybody acting suspiciously to call us on our non-emergency number 101 quoting log 349 of 28 September.”
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