Girls who kidnapped toddler from Primark store tried to take another earlier that day
Two girls aged 13 and 14 have admitted kidnapping a two-year-old from a Primark store in the UK while she was on a shopping trip with her mother.
It can now be reported that the victim was the second child they had tried to grab from the store in Newcastle that day, having tried unsuccessfully to trick another little girl's mother.
The 13 and 14-year-olds admitted leading the second toddler away from the store and taking her to a park three miles away.
They were arrested an hour and 45 minutes after they led the confused little girl away from the store in busy Northumberland Street.
The victim was reunited with her mother after the abductors were traced by CCTV camera operators from the city centre, on to the Metro system and along Gosforth High Street and into a park.
They were originally charged with kidnap "with the intention of committing a relevant sexual offence" but this was "discontinued" at the hearing today and the girls admitted an alternative charge of kidnap.
At a youth court hearing in North Shields, North Tyneside, the girls also admitted shoplifting dummies, a baby's bottle and baby milk.
At a previous hearing it emerged that the girls had unsuccessfully tried to grab another small child from the same store that day, April 13.
In both cases they targeted black children.
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."
Mr Poppett described the failed abduction, which happened two hours earlier in the same Primark store, with the two teenagers playing with a little girl moments before her mother lost sight of her.
One of the teenagers approached her 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 around in the opposite direction, and that was where she found her daughter, Mr Poppett said. This was two hours before the second, "successful" kidnap.
The girls, who the media are prevented from identifying, have no criminal record and have never been arrested or cautioned.
Mr Poppett said the girls had been known to social services for "quite some time" and have gone missing from home on a number of occasions.
The girls spoke so quietly it was hard for the dozen reporters at the back of the brightly-lit courtroom to hear them give their dates of birth and state their guilty pleas.
District Judge Roger Elsey adjourned the case for reports to be made, and said the issue of "dangerousness" must be addressed.
Referring to the searches on the computer, he said: "There is some very concerning material on the tablet that was recovered.
"That is going to have to inform the assessment of dangerousness."
The case will be back before the youth court at North Shields on July 4, when the prosecution will outline their case and the defence will put forward mitigation.
The judge told the girls they may yet be sentenced in the Crown Court.
They were remanded into the care of the local authority in the meantime.
