Families of Dorset stabbing victims make appeal

LONDON, Aug 25 (Reuters) The families of three teenage girls stabbed as they got off a bus in the small seaside town of Bridport in Dorset appealed today for information about their attacker.

Charlotte Teague, 14, Sophie Hyne, 15, and Kirsty Edwards, 17, were attacked shortly before 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening after an argument on the bus with a man, Dorset police said.

''If anybody knows anything out there, please don't be afraid to come forward because he is still out there,'' Teague's mother Michelle told reporters.

''We don't want anyone else to go through what we've gone through.'' Chief Inspector Nick Maton said the girls had suffered ''a sustained and frenzied attack''. One had received multiple stab wounds.

Edwards, from Staffordshire, and Teague and Hyne, both from Bridport, were rushed to hospital but despite initial fears police said none of their injuries was now considered life-threatening.

Yesterday, officers arrested a 20-year-old man from the town but Maton said he had now been released without charge.

He said detectives believed there were people who had information about the attack who had not yet come forward.

''They maybe assume wrongly that others have already come forward with that information and there is no need for them to speak to the police,'' he said.

''To those people we would say: 'we are waiting to hear from you.''' Michelle Teague said the girls were recovering and had been laughing and joking in hospital.

''They are coping with it well,'' she said.

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