Two girls aged 13 and 14 have pleaded guilty to kidnapping a two-year-old from a shop in Newcastle, and stealing baby paraphernalia.
It can now be reported that the victim was the second child they had tried to grab from the store in the city that day, having tried unsuccessfully to trick another young girl’s mother.
The girls, who cannot be named, appeared side by side at North Tyneside youth court on Tuesday. They have no previous convictions and have never even been arrested before but were well known to social services, having run away from home on a number of occasions.
Quietly spoken, they each admitted that they had “unlawfully and by force or fraud” taken the toddler from Primark in Newcastle city centre on 13 April. The girls also pleaded guilty to shoplifting dummies, baby bottles and milk from other stores.
They had been due to face further charges under the Sexual Offences Act, but these charges have been discontinued, the court heard. Detectives initially believed the girls had abducted the baby with the intent of sexually abusing her.
The girls were refused bail by district judge Roger Elsey, who remanded them into local authority care. Psychiatric and probation reports will be carried out to assess the danger posed by the girls as well as their mental health before sentencing on 4 July.
Describing the case as very complex and very serious, Elsey said the girls may face a custodial sentence but that it was not inevitable. “The custody threshold is crossed but that does not necessarily mean a custodial sentence will be imposed,” he said.
The judge also said sentencing would have to take into account “very concerning” material found on a tablet computer used by one or both girls.
The abduction sparked a huge search across Newcastle. Once the alarm was raised, officers trawled through CCTV from the council, shops, Newcastle University, bus companies, the metro and their own cameras.
The toddler was found an hour and 45 minutes later about three miles away in Gosforth Central park, north Newcastle.
At a previous hearing it emerged that the girls had unsuccessfully tried to grab another small child from the same store that day.
It was also said at the hearing in April that a tablet computer was found containing searches for “rape”, “people getting raped”, “young people getting raped”, “poor little thing getting kidnapped and raped”.
A source said there was not enough evidence to proceed with the kidnap charge with a sexual element.
Lee Poppett, prosecuting, told the previous youth court hearing at South East Northumberland magistrates court: “There is several links to ‘African woman sexual activity’ and the young child in this case is black.”
Describing the failed abduction, which happened two hours earlier in the same Primark store, Poppett said the two teenagers were playing with another little black girl moments before her mother lost sight of her.
One of the teenagers approached the mother and asked if she was looking for a little girl with a green coat, and told her to go to the counter, as that was where the child was. But the mother turned in the opposite direction, and that was where she found her daughter, Poppett said. This was two hours before the second, “successful” kidnap.
