A disagreement about a request to photograph a toddler at a popular Sydney playground sparked a false alarm about an attempted abduction.
Police say an unknown woman grabbed a two-year-old boy while he was playing in Darling Harbour with his four-year-old brother on Friday at 12.30pm (AEDT).
The older boy screamed and alerted their mother who ran up to the woman and demanded her son back.
Superintendent Mark Walton told reporters the mother said to the woman: "Give me the boy."
The woman replied: "I want to take a picture."
The mother said "no" before the woman handed the boy back and returned to her three companions who were nearby.
Police initially described the incident as an attempted abduction.
But Supt Walton said information that the woman had tried to walk away with the child and struggled with the mother before letting him go were wrong.
"I'm certainly not saying there was anything appropriate about what's occurred," Supt Walton told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday.
"But was it an abduction, was it a crime? I'm not convinced of that in any way at this stage."
Investigators would like to speak to the woman, who is described as being of sub-continental appearance, aged in her mid-30s, about 160cm tall and with long dark hair.
She was wearing long black leggings a dark-coloured T-shirt and reading glasses.
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