A worried mother is warning parents about a man and woman who approached her 10-year-old daughter travelling alone on the DLR on her way home from school and asked to take her photograph.

The child was approached as she boarded a train in at Canary Wharf, heading home to the Isle of Dogs after travelling from her school in Romford.

The couple told her she was pretty, then asked to take her picture.

“My daughter got home and burst into tears,” the child’s mother said. “She now can’t travel alone any more.

“This frightens me. I want other parents to be aware of the couple.”

The family reported the incident at Limehouse police station later that evening and say they are now having to meet the child every day at the station.

The girl’s grandfather, retired gas fitter Denis Newland, said: “I’m concerned about my granddaughter’s safety.

“The man told her she was a very pretty girl and wearing pretty clothes. Then he took her picture and the couple just walked down the carriage.

“Other parents and children need to be aware.”

Transport police have been sifting through CCTV footage from the DLR this week, in the hope of tracing the couple. The man is described as thin, medium height.