Ex-teacher tried to abduct girl

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/wales/north_east/7606312.stm

Version 0 of 1.

A 54-year-old teacher turned playground designer and builder has been convicted of attempting to abduct a five-year-old girl on a housing estate.

Robert Bill of St Asaph, Denbighshire, who denied the charge, was remanded in custody pending sentence.

Mold Crown Court was told he had an unhealthy interest in children and had cruised a Holywell housing estate where he tried to abduct the girl in 2007.

However, it was accepted that he had not actually touched the girl.

Bill first qualified as an art and design teacher in 1975 before setting up a playground equipment company called Play Quest in 1991.

He sold the company in 2001 and went into property development and decking work before later forming a company called Play Zone with his sons.

It was the second time Bill had stood trial for alleged child offences after a jury discharged him in June when it failed to reach a verdict. I knew that there was something wrong... it just was not normal Mother of potential abduction victim

In this latest case, the court heard how he had been seen cruising for hours around a Holywell estate in his Ford Mondeo on the afternoon of 22 June, 2007 searching for a victim.

He was spotted by the mother of a girl as he stopped her daughter while the five-year-old walked home from a playground where she had been playing with friends.

"I knew that there was something wrong," she said. "It just was not normal."

Prosecutor Simon Medland said the mother saw Bill's dark-coloured estate car pull, apparently suddenly, from the right side of the road to the wrong side.

"It parked up on the pavement just in front of where she was going to walk," he said.

"The defendant got out, the door was opened and he engaged her in conversation.

"He asked her 'Have you seen a cat?' She replied no and at the same time her uncle arrived.

"He came across the scene, not himself knowing what was going on and sent her off home."

'Very fortunate'

Mr Medland said it was "very fortunate" her uncle appeared as Bill was about to abduct his niece off the street.

Bill accepted that he had stopped his car but said it had been to check a wheel and that he had not approached the child and could not recall having seen one.

He said that he was simply driving around the estate to try and release the brakes on his Mondeo estate which had been making a noise and he had stopped a number of times to check the vehicle.

Bill denied the charges of attempted abduction but the jury returned with a unanimous guilty verdict against him on Tuesday morning after taking more than five hours to come to a decision.

There were emotional scenes and crying up in the public gallery as the verdict was returned but Bill showed no reaction, apart from indicating to his family that he was all right.

Judge Philip Hughes told Bill to expect a prison sentence but, as he was a man of good character, he would need to have a pre-sentence report from the probation service before sentencing took place.