A 60-year-old man abducted an eight-year-old girl from her North Yorkshire home because he believed the youngster was his wife, a Court heard.

Arthur Jenkinson sparked a nationwide police hunt after he ran away with the girl last November and the couple were discovered the next day at a railway station near Exeter in Devon.

Bizarrely, Jenkinson then told police that it had been the youngster's idea for them to leave and that he had tried to persuade her it was a bad idea.

Jenkinson, of Woodland Street, Cowling, near Keighley, has already pleaded guilty to a charge of abducting the girl, but has denied five sample charges of indecently assaulting her.

Prosecutor James Spencer QC told the jury at Bradford Crown Court yesterday that during the search for the missing youngster police officers had searched Jenkinson's home and found "alarming'' items including letters referring to the girl as his "sweet wife'' and photographs of them standing on church steps.

Officers also found other discarded and half-written letters suggesting that they should go away together and one which indicated that they had been married in January last year.

Mr Spencer said it was the Crown's case that Jenkinson had been gradually grooming the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, for his own sexual gratification in classic paedophile style.

"He persuaded her that they were in love, that they were man and wife and evidently persuaded her to run away with him,'' he told the jury.

The indecent assaults relate to instances when Jenkinson kissed the youngster on the lips and Mr Spencer said it was the prosecution's case that given all the other circumstances those were sexual acts rather than shows of affection.

The jury heard how Jenkinson, a divorcee, took the girl by taxi to his home and collected two rucksacks and his pet dog.

He then ordered another taxi to take them all to the Victoria railway station in Manchester, but after realising they were at the wrong station they went by taxi to Sheffield and got a train to Exeter.

They arrived there at about 10pm and spent the night in a barn near a town on the way to Barnstaple. Mr Spencer said they were spotted sheltering at a railway station by a train driver who asked his colleagues to contact the police.

When they arrived at the station Jenkinson gave them a false name but he was arrested and the girl taken away by social services staff.

During his police interviews, Jenkinson was asked whether he had any kind of sexual relationship with the girl and he told the officers: "Only a bit... not much.''

He denied fantasising about having sex with her and claimed that some of the notes the police found at his home were "just rubbish he used to write''.

The trial continues.