Man jailed over teenage abduction

The court was told the girl was not forced to go on the trip

A man has been jailed after sparking a nationwide hunt when he ran off with a 14-year-old girl from Lincolnshire.

Michael Ellis, 23, of Alexandria Road, Newtoft, admitted child abduction at Lincoln Crown Court on 8 October.

He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years imprisonment after travelling with the girl for two weeks before being arrested in Norfolk in August.

He was ordered to serve a further year after admitting making a hoax bomb call to police in an unrelated incident.

Nationwide appeal

Judge Michael Heath told Ellis he had no regard for how worried the girl's parents would be.

In an earlier hearing the court heard Ellis met the girl on the social networking website Bebo but there was no evidence of a sexual relationship between the pair.

Ellis had been warned by police to stop seeing the girl after she went missing earlier in the year following a meeting in an internet chatroom, the court was told.

Alison Cunningham, prosecuting, said the warning followed a suspected failed suicide pact between them.

Despite police intervention Ellis continued texting the girl and began camping in woods near her home on 17 July, the court was told.

Hitch-hiking

The girl went missing two days later after telling her mother she was going to Skegness with a 17-year-old friend and his grandfather.

The pair did spend time in Skegness but then went hitch-hiking across Lincolnshire and Norfolk with Ellis, the court heard.

Police found them camping on a beach at Mundesley after a nationwide appeal resulted in reports of a sighting near Cromer.

Michael Cranmer-Brown, mitigating, said the girl told police she was not forced to go on the trip, went willingly and was returned safe and well.