Bath girl: Police issue description of man

Police hunting a dangerous paedophile who snatched a six-year-old girl issued a description today of the man they want to talk to and details of where he may have taken her.

Officers are looking for the abductor who took the child from her bath, drove her away in a car, then dumped her, naked, about 15 minutes later in a snowy back lane in North Tyneside.

Today a spokeswoman for Northumbria Police said the youngster has given detectives a partial description.

She said they are looking for a white man who is between 5ft 4ins and 5ft 8ins tall.

He was wearing a black hat, black coat and black gloves.

The spokeswoman said the girl told officers he was “not skinny” and had hair on the side of his face, possibly sideburns.

She said they are “keeping an open mind” about the suspect’s age because te girl has based her assessment on his height.

Detectives said they have managed to piece together part of the route on which the abductor may have taken the girl after she pointed out landmarks in the Wallsend area to the team.

The spokeswoman said these include the Kwik Save supermarket in Hadrian Road and the Rose Inn, in Church Bank.

She said they believe the route also included Park Road, Laurel Street, High Street, High Street East and Tynemouth Road.

The youngster was abandoned in Armstrong Road.

Yesterday Det Chief Insp Jim Napier asked the abductor to search his “conscience” and give himself up.

But no-one has yet come forward to say they saw a man acting suspiciously in the area on Tuesday night.

Today Mr Napier said: “We would ask anyone who was in this area last Tuesday evening between 7pm and 7.30pm who noticed anything suspicious, particularly a vehicle being driven erratically or in a strange manner with driver possibly being distracted, to contact us.”

Mr Napier has previously described the attacker as “extremely dangerous“.

Officers have been speaking to known sex offenders in the North East as a priority.