A 15-year-old girl who went missing from her Folkestone home turned up more than 115 miles away at the house of a man 30 years her senior.

The teenager had a bust-up with her dad and walked out - leaving her parents to believe she was staying with friends.

Now a judge at Canterbury Crown Court has heard that she was staying with 46-year-old Christopher Bradford.

They were discovered hugging each other behind a bench in the garden in Luton, Bedfordshire.

Although Bradford admitted a charge of abduction – he denied the two had any sexual relationship during the week the teenager was missing.

But Judge Heather Norton heard that the two had swapped “flirtatious” love texts with each other.

“It has driven a massive wedge between us. The whole family has just been blown up and I don’t know how the family is going to fix itself. This is my worst nightmare but I never believed that something like this would ever happen” - The girl's mother

Bradford’s lawyer Kieran Moroney claimed the sex messages were “just banter” and denied the two had a “boyfriend-girlfriend” relationship.

Prosecutor James Keeley told how in November last year the teenager had gone to stay at the home of her father in Folkestone but this “had not worked out”.

“She left and he thought she was staying at a friend’s house but he was wrong. From the end of October and in November she was with the defendant.

“The girl’s mother texted her daughter but received no response, so she contacted the father and the teenager was reported missing.”

Mr Keeley said the girl turned up after a few days at her father’s home to collect items but refused to say where she was going.

He said the father asked one of his daughters to follow her sister, who went to Folkestone Railway Station where she was seen with Bradford.

The two later arrived in Luton at the home of one of Bradford’s ex-partners, introducing the girl as his daughter, said the prosecutor.

Bradford then held a party at a flat in Luton, annoying another of the residents, and police later arrested him.

He told officers: “I wanted to bring her in but she wouldn’t let me. I was trying to look after her.”

Mr Keeley added: “The police noted the two were found in the garden hiding and hugging. She was taken into police protection but refused to co-operate with the investigation.

In a Victim Impact Statement penned by the girl’s mother, she told how the incident had led to “a gross deterioration” in the relationship between mother and daughter.

She added: “It has driven a massive wedge between us. The whole family has just been blown up and I don’t know how the family is going to fix itself.

“This is my worst nightmare but I never believed that something like this would ever happen.”

Mr Moroney said Bradford was “a weak character” and had been unable to deal with her as “some 15-years-olds can be more mature than some 20-year-olds in their attitude and behaviour”

He added: “It was an inappropriate but not a sexual relationship and he knows he should have returned her to either social services, the police or her parents.”

Bradford, who has been held in prison since his arrest, was jailed for 12 months after admitting child abduction.

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