A 60-year-old man claimed to have exchanged wedding rings with a young girl he later abducted from her home, a Court heard.

Arthur Jenkinson told a friend in Cornwall that he had married the eight-year-old and that they thought of each other as husband and wife.

Mary Kelly, who had got to know Jenkinson while he was visiting Cornwall, told a jury at Bradford Crown Court: "He said 'We have exchanged rings and as far as we are concerned we are married.

"'She calls me husband and I call her my wife.'''

Mrs Kelly said Jenkinson told her during phone calls that he wanted to take the girl with him to Cornwall because she was unhappy at home.

Jenkinson alleged that the youngster was being forced to do the housework and that her father beat her.

During cross-examination Mrs Kelly conceded that she had initially taken Jenkinson's comments with a pinch of salt but added: "I began to see a change in the way he was talking about the girl and I thought he had an unhealthy obsession with her.

"Looking back I wish I had done something about it.''

In November last year Jenkinson, of Woodlands Street, Cowling, near Keighley, took the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, from her North Yorkshire home and travelled by taxi and train down to Exeter.

They slept in a barn overnight before being spotted by a train driver at a nearby railway station the next morning.

Jenkinson, a divorcee, has already pleaded guilty to a charge of abduction, but has denied five sample charges of indecent assault relating to incidents when he kissed the girl on the lips.

A next-door neighbour of Jenkinson, Andrea Wilson, told the jury that she saw him call the girl over to him and kiss her on the lips.

Mrs Wilson said he also told her that the girl wanted to marry him and that he had plans to take her to Cornwall and use a false identity.

"He seemed to come up with a lot of stories that weren't true,'' she said.

"So it just went over my head. He lived in a dream world.''

The trial continues.