A WEST Cumbrian man has admitted three child abduction charges.

At Carlisle Crown Court, a Crown Prosecution Service barrister outlined how the bizarre background to the offences included a large debt allegedly owed to the defendant by the mother of the two primary school age children from the Workington area who were involved.

None of those involved can be named for legal reasons.

The defendant - a man in his 30s who is a relative of the children he abducted - committed the first two offences on September 24, 2016, while the mother of the two children was upstairs at her home, possibly asleep, said barrister Kate Hammond, prosecuting.

“The defendant attended at the address and took the two children without her permission,” she said.

“She woke up and realised that the children were not making noises and so she went to look for them. She couldn’t find the children.”

Both children were later returned to their mother.

Miss Hammond said that for a number of reasons, the mother chose not to contact the police at that stage.

“She didn’t want to make a fuss,” said the barrister.

The third offence – an attempted child abduction – happened on October 10, 2018.

By this stage, one of the children – a girl – was making her own way home from school. Knowing this, the defendant parked outside the girl’s school and as she walked passed he asked her to get into his vehicle, the court heard.

Despite him making several attempts to persuade the girl to get into his car, she refused. At one point, he was shouting at her – but the child ran away, going to a friend’s home.

In a later court hearing, the defendant said he took the two children on the first occasion after leaving a note for their mother. He claimed she owed him £5,000. Judge Nicholas Barker delivered his judgement on the facts after hearing evidence.

He ruled that the man did not leave a note for the children’s mother. The defendant had taken the children to deliberately cause the mother alarm and distress, said the judge.

The judge further ruled that the defendant’s stated reasons for trying to get the child into his car – to ask about changes in her family circumstances - was not true. After the two incidents, said Miss Hammond, the children’s mother had suffered anxiety and panic attacks.

Judith McCullough, for the man, who admitted all three offences, said he was a home owner on a good salary and a jail sentence would put all of that at risk.

It was known that the defendant had lent a “large amount” of money to the children’s mother.

Even she accepted that unauthorised amounts had been taken an not paid back, said the barrister.

“It’s very sad to see a family broken in the way that [the defendant’s] has,” said Miss McCullough, adding that there was no evidence of harm to the children.

Judge Nicholas Barker noted that the defendant's a relationship with the children’s mother was complex, fraught and strained.

Referring to the first abduction, the judge told the defendant: “It must have been obvious to you that the removal of the children would cause her distress, which is exactly what happened.

"It’s right to say that they were returned to her care within a relatively short time.

“But there was a period of time when she didn’t know where her children were; and that, as any parent would understand, is something of a worst nightmare.”

The man used the children to cause their mother anxiety and distress, said the judge.

He imposed a 14-month jail term but suspended the sentence for two years. The man must do 120 hours of unpaid work in the community, with 30 days of rehabilitation.

Judge Barker also imposed a four-year restraining order, forbidding any contact with the woman or her children.