LONDON -- The Amber Alert system is "fatally flawed" and in dire need of changes, warns the American child-safety advocate who helped create the original program.

Marc Klaas is particularly critical of the rule that apparently stopped Woodstock police from invoking an Amber Alert after Victoria (Tori) Stafford's April 8 disappearance -- the need for a description of a suspect vehicle.

"In a stranger (kidnapping) or an overtly predatory scenario, the perpetrator is going to take steps to cover his tracks," Klaas told The Free Press from California. "Therefore, it's incredibly unlikely you'll be able to get that information.

"It excludes the vast majority of children who need the Amber Alert the most."

Klaas, whose daughter Polly was kidnapped from a 1993 slumber party and killed, was a renowned child-safety advocate by the time nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted from an Arlington, Tex., parking lot in 1996.

He later helped her family develop the first Amber Alert program, which has spread across the U.S. and Canada. But the "red tape" created since has rendered it ineffective, Klaas said, noting many of the highest- profile child abductions -- Elizabeth Smart and Adam Walsh, for example -- wouldn't have qualified for an Amber Alert.

Klaas has become increasingly critical during recent months, largely because of the kidnapping of a California child. Two men tied up a family, ransacked their home and took the child -- but an Amber Alert wasn't issued immediately because no one could describe the abductors' vehicle, he said.

"It's astonishing."

Vehicle descriptions are most likely in cases of family abductions, which are generally the least dangerous, Klaas said.

"It's a fatal flaw. I'm really concerned that the children that need this kind of response the most are the children least served by it."

Klaas suggested changes are simple. If an otherwise well-adjusted child, with no history or likelihood of running away, doesn't return home on time, an Amber Alert should be issued. Suggestions such a system would be overused, thus making it less effective, are unfounded, he said.

"They say it (could) be overused, but there's no basis for that. Those (cases) don't happen that often."

Amber Hagerman, whose case inspired the Amber Alert, was found dead days after her abduction. The crime was never solved.

patrick.maloney@sunmedia.ca