We all like to think we’d stop and help if we came across a lost child.
 
However, in a social experiment for TV, hidden cameras capture the moments an unbelievable 616 people turned a blind eye to two little girls who took turns at pretending to be lost.
 
In the programme, Little Girl Lost, sisters seven-year-old Uma and five year old Maya, stood for an hour in a busy shopping centre in the UK on their own looking lost and worried, with their mum keeping watch from a hiding place nearby.
 
When a crowd of people were asked before the experiment if they would help out a child who looked lost, almost all of them said that they would.
 
However, during the experiment, all but one person ignored the girls, even those who had clearly seen them. A mother with a pram even wheeled around one of the little girls.
 
Grandmother Pearl Pitcher was the only one who stopped to ask the girl if she was ok.
 
Experts said the reluctance of the passers-by to help was partly due to people being too busy to stop but partly down to being afraid of being misinterpreted as a predator. 
 
But the NSPCC said a child's welfare was more important than worrying about being labelled a “stranger danger”.
 
Little Girl Lost will be shown on Channel 5, tonight at 6.30pm. 

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