A 72-year-old man has been jailed for nine years over the abduction of a child more than 15 years ago.
A six-year-old girl was taken from Barton-under-Needwood, a village in between Lichfield and Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, in 2001.
Arnold Baxter, of Bath Street in Rugby, Warwickshire, pleaded guilty to charges of kidnap and indecent assault.
The case attracted a lot of media attention and featured on Crimewatch, but no-one ever arrested at the time.
A national manhunt was launched following the abduction and numerous appeals focussing on tracing a Ford Mondeo were made.
A computer generated image of the suspect was also compiled from a witness description, showing the man wore a hat in an attempt to alter his appearance.
'Every parent's nightmare'
Baxter was caught when a DNA sample taken after he was arrested for drinking and driving last September produced a match with one taken from the girl's clothing, Stafford Crown Court heard.
He admitted driving to the village in a black Ford Mondeo which had false registration plates, stolen from a car in Peterborough six weeks before the kidnap, and snatching the girl.
He assaulted her and dumped her in another village where she was found half an hour later by a passing motorist.
Sentencing him, Judge Mark Eades described what happened as "every parent's nightmare" and said Baxter would be put on the sex offenders register for life.
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I find it hard to believe he went to all that trouble to commit only a single offence?


