Trucker jailed for girl's abduction

Robert Williams, 49, of Glebe Road, Whitburn, Scotland, was sentenced at Grimsby Crown Court after earlier pleading guilty to child abduction and sexual activity with a child.

The court was told Williams was on bail at the time of the incident in January this year after a complaint about a similar incident involving another teenage girl.

Williams was arrested in late 2008 after he met a 16-year-old girl on the internet and travelled from Scotland to Sussex to meet her, before booking into a hotel where the pair had sex.

He was interviewed and bailed in connection with the incident, the court heard.

But just weeks later, Williams arranged to meet the "naive" and "vulnerable" teenager in this case and took her from her home in north east Lincolnshire on January 14.

Williams and the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, travelled by train from Grimsby to Doncaster and then on to London, where they booked into a hotel room and twice had unprotected sex.

The next day they travelled to France on a ferry from Dover and were found a week after disappearing, on January 21, when they went to the British Consulate in Lille. Staff at the Consulate contacted police and Williams was arrested and later extradited to the UK.

Sentencing Williams, Judge David Tremberg described him as a "sexual predator".

He said the case was "troubling" coming so soon after his previous arrest, even though charges were never brought on that occasion.