Abduction bid trial hears of girl’s fears

BY JAMES MULHOLLAND A SCHOOLGIRL who was the subject of an alleged abduction bid told police she a friend were offered £5 by a cyclist who approached them in a playground, a court heard yesterday.

A jury were shown a video of the 10-year-old being interviewed by officers after an incident in Falkirk last May.

The film was played at the High Court in Edinburgh on the first day of proceedings against John Bermingham, 51.

He is accused of attempting to abduct two girls “with intent to commit a sexual offence”.

The film, recorded at Falkirk police station, showed the girl telling officers that the cyclist who approached them offered to give them “a fiver” if they helped him find his lost jacket.

She said she didn’t want to accept his cash but she and her friend headed with him towards woodland.

The girl said two other men approached them and asked if they knew the cyclist. When she said she didn’t, they told them to leave the scene.

The girl told officers she felt scared.

She said: “I just didn’t know what was going to happen. I thought that he was going to take us away and kill us.”

The prosecution allege Bermingham pretended to the girls that he had lost his jacket, offered them money and induced them to go with him across a stretch of water called Glen Burn and into woodland.

The Crown claim that on the same date and in the same place, Bermingham punched Brandon MacDonald.

Constable Craig Primrose told the court he took a statement from the girl’s friend. She told him the man wanted help to look for his jacket.

She added: “He said there was a house in the trees that people can go to and it had treats in it.”

Bermingham denies two charges of attempted abduction and assault.

The trial continues.