Young Girl Tells Court Of Attempted Kidnap At Merry Hill Centre

In June last year, the teenager had been sitting in the front passenger seat of a car on the car park of the KFC restaurant near to the Odeon cinema at the shopping centre.

The girl told police that she had stayed in the vehicle with a 13-year-old friend while another girl and her granddad went inside the restaurant to order food.

She was alerted to a man who had pulled up in the neighbouring parking bay by her friend sitting behind who said he had winked at her, the jury was told. In her interview, she added: 

"My friend said she was worried and that someone had winked at her in the car next to us.

“I looked and he winked at me. He said ‘I love you’ and he told us to get in the car.”

Giving evidence in the trial of Shawn Jones, a road worker accused of attempted abduction,  the girl added: 

"I took off my belt I was that scared. I tried to put my window up but the keys were not in.

“He was blowing kisses and everything to us. As soon as my friend’s granddad came back we told him what had happened.”

Jones, 45, of Norwood Road, Brierley Hill, is said to have driven away when he saw the friend’s granddad returning from inside the restaurant.
Asked to expand on what he said to her, the girl said: 

“He said ‘get in my car’ really angrily. It was the expression he had on his face. Also as he was saying it he was smiling at us and it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. He was smiling at us in a really awkward way.

“I was really, really scared. I thought he was going to rape me or something.”

The prosecution allege Jones tried to abduct the two girls to commit a sexual offence and two others on two separate occasions. On January 15 last year he is accused of approaching a 14-year-old girl who was walking in the Kates Hill area in his car and telling her she was beautiful before offering to drive her around.

And on April 14 last year he is said to have similarly approached a 12-year-old girl in Slade Road, Cradley, telling her she was ‘good looking’ and asking if she wanted to ‘go for a ride.’

Jones denies four charges of attempted abduction and four charges of attempting to abduct a child with intent to commit a sexual offence. The trial continues.