A PAEDOPHILE groomed a 15-year-old schoolgirl on a dating website before driving 200 miles to abduct her from Gwent.

Charles Fraser-Varney, 21, travelled from East Anglia and waited for her outside her Monmouthshire home.

She climbed out of her bedroom window before she ran off with him, prosecutor Roger Griffiths said.

Cardiff Crown Court heard how Fraser-Varney had claimed to the girl that he was aged 17.

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In a victim statement, the girl’s mother described how she was “terrified” when she realised her daughter was missing last year.

She said: “When I realised she wasn’t in her bedroom, there was sheer disbelief. I felt my heart had been ripped out of my chest.”

The court heard how the girl spent the night with Fraser-Varney in the grounds of a castle where he kissed her before she was found the next day.

The defendant was arrested in Scotland in January where he had been jailed for driving while disqualified.

He admitted sexual activity with a child, child abduction and engaging in sexual communication with a 15-year-old girl.

Mr Griffiths said Fraser-Varney had 15 previous convictions for 40 offences including a relevant one from 2016 for inducing a 14-year-old girl to run away.

Laurence Jones, mitigating, asked the court to give his client full credit for his early pleas and added the defendant had shown remorse for his actions.

Judge Daniel Williams was told that Fraser-Varney had already served the equivalent of an eight-month jail sentence while being held in custody on remand.

Mr Jones said the defendant had being spending 23 hours a day in his cell since the coronavirus outbreak.

Judge Williams told Fraser-Varney: “You have a sexual interest in young girls and you are entirely manipulative and dishonest.”

He sentenced him to a two-year community order which includes a 25-day rehabilitation activity requirement and the attendance of a sex behaviour programme.

The defendant, of no fixed abode, must also register as a sex offender for five years and pay an £85 victim surcharge.

Fraser-Varney appeared in court via video link from Bridgend’s Parc Prison.