Stalker next door abducted girl, age 17

John Harding, 30, drilled holes in the walls of the girl’s home to watch her undress and also while she showered.

The High Court in Aberdeen heard Harding’s obsession culminated in him luring the girl, now aged 17, from her work with the promise of a driving lesson.

He took the terrified teenager to a remote caravan on Shetland where he told her he wanted to "set her free" and that it was his dream to "do things with her".

The girl, who cannot be named, eventually escaped and found refuge in a nearby house. Harding had spied on her since she was nine.

Yesterday he admitted a charge of breach of the peace between January 1996 and September 2003 and detaining the girl against her will also in September last year.

Lord Abernethy deferred sentence on Harding, whose address was given as St Fitticks House, Crombie Road, Aberdeen, for background reports.

Advocate-depute Mark Stewart, prosecuting, told the court that on the evening of September 21, Harding collected the girl from work for her lesson, taking her to an industrial estate because of her lack of confidence behind the wheel.

He ignored her pleas to take her home, telling her they needed to go somewhere quiet.

Mr Stewart said: "The complainer was becoming unsettled and scared, telling the accused that she wished to go. The accused ignored these wishes.

"He started to tell the complainer that he had been thinking thoughts about her which he ought not to be thinking."

The girl became frightened and got out of the car to run away, but Harding persuaded her to get back in with a lie that he would take her home.

When he began the 30-mile drive out to a dilapidated caravan on an area of remote croft land, he threw her mobile phone out of the car when she used it to try and call for help.

Mr Stewart said: "The complainer became so terrified by that, that she attempted to open the door of the moving car and get out. But she was seized by the accused who took hold of her arm and held on to her shouting at her that she should go to sleep."

Despite the girl begging to be taken home, Harding, who formerly worked for a taxi company, took her inside the caravan where he began to cuddle and kiss her on the forehead.

Mr Stewart told the court: "He continued by making statements to her such as he would set her free and that he would show her love.

"He explained that it was his dream that he would do things with her."

Mr Stewart said the girl became convinced Harding wished to have sex with her and that she experienced a feeling of "abject terror".

When he unfastened his trousers, she ran from the caravan, making a desperate dash over the rough terrain.

Mr Stewart said she reached a house where a resident described her as "shaking uncontrollably, obviously terrified and pleading for help".

When Harding was later arrested, he admitted he had "developed an obsession" for her when she had lived in two houses in Lerwick and that he had "derived sexual gratification" from seeing her in the bathroom, Mr Stewart said.

Harding, who was released on bail, is to be sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow on July 27.