Tradie Ryan Ashley Darken kidnapped young girl on way to school, cable tied hands

Tradie Ryan Ashley Darken has been remanded in custody awaiting sentencing for kidnapping a girl in his ute last year.

A Perth tradie will spend months more behind bars as he waits to learn his fate for the shocking kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl on her way to school.

Ryan Ashley Darken previously pleaded guilty to luring the girl into his ute at Warnbro, in the outer suburbs of Perth, about 8.25am on July 21.

He left her outside an IGA supermarket in Port Kennedy with her hands bound by cable ties a short while later.

A parent who witnessed the incident alerted the girl’s school, and news spread after the girl’s mother took to social media to plead for help.

The girl was later found in distress at a shopping centre several kilometres away.

Police officers swarmed the area and Darken was arrested and charged.

Ryan Ashley Darken is waiting for a forensic psychiatric report before he is sentenced for trying to entice a nine-year-old girl into his ute outside a Perth school.

Mr Darken was charged with detaining another with intent to do harm, deprivation of liberty, assault, and making threats.

He pleaded guilty to those charges in the Rockingham Magistrates Court on November 3, 2023.

He was not required to appear in the Perth District Court on Friday, but his lawyer Christian Porter told registrar Jacquie Kubacz that Mr Darken required multiple appointments with a forensic psychiatrist to produce a report for his sentencing hearing.

The court heard the first available appointment was not until July.

The West reported in March that Mr Darken had suffered a head injury in a car accident when he was a child and was considered to be quite functionally impaired.

The case is due back in the District Court for a mention hearing on August 30 before he is sentenced in October.

Originally published as Tradie Ryan Ashley Darken kidnapped young girl on way to school, cable tied hands