‘Sleazy’ child snatcher jailed after abducting young girl from her bed in the middle of the night

A teenager who snatched a sleeping 9-year-old girl from her bed in the middle of the night last year has been jailed for two years and six months.

A TEENAGER who snatched a sleeping 9-year-old girl from her bed in the middle of the night in Tennant Creek last year has been jailed for two years and six months.

Rod Riguez Tracker, 19, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to abducting the girl from under her mother’s nose after a night of heavy drinking on July 19.

The court heard Tracker was drinking with his victim’s older teenage sisters at about midnight on July 19 when he began “acting in a sleazy manner” and was asked to leave.

He then walked into the loungeroom where the child was sleeping, picked her up and left before anyone else noticed what he had done.

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As he walked away from the house, the girl woke up and said “I want to go home” but Tracker said “no” and told her to go back to sleep before carrying her into a “dark and secluded” dead end.

In sentencing, Justice Trevor Riley said when Tracker put the child down and started to “rummage” in his pocket she got up and ran back to her house where she “frantically called to be let in”.

“Her family saw that she was crying and shaking, and she told her mother that a man had taken her when she was asleep,” he said.

Justice Riley said the girl’s mother called the police and as she was speaking to them, Tracker returned to the house saying “I didn’t do it, I didn’t take her”.

“You started to climb through the window and the mother was yelling at you to leave,” he said.

“The victim, her mother and the other children, together, retreated into the lounge room for safety, however, you fled the location prior to the police arriving.

“The victim’s mother, after you had fled, took the child and her other children to her parents’ house because she was fearful that you would return.”

Tracker turned himself in in the early hours of the morning and told police he didn’t know why he picked the girl up or what he was going to do with her.

In setting a non-parole period of 15 months, Justice Riley said there was insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Tracker had intended to molest the girl.

“The experience must have been quite terrifying for the young girl, and of course, extremely disturbing and frightening for her mother and her sisters,” he said.

“While the abduction only lasted a short time, the reason it came to an end was not of your doing but rather because the young child escaped. It is not known what your intentions were in relation to the child.”

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But Justice Riley said whatever Tracker’s intentions were, “they were not honourable”.

“Such conduct strikes at the heart of the sanctity of the family home and the safety of young children asleep in their own home,” he said.

“It engenders in the wider community a fear for the safety of themselves, others and especially children, when they should be feeling safe in their own homes.”

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