A Perth man who lured a nine-year-old girl into his car by asking her to help find his lost puppy has been sentenced to almost 11½ years in prison.
Ryan Ashley Darken, 39, drove to a southern suburbs primary school on July 21 last year and approached the girl, who was walking to school with her friends.
Ryan Darken admitted kidnapping a girl from outside a Perth school.Credit: Facebook
During Darken’s sentencing hearing on Tuesday, the court heard he told the girl he was looking for his lost puppy and asked her to help find it, but the girl responded that she wasn’t meant to speak to strangers.
“I’m not a stranger, I’m your friend’s dad,” Darken replied.
The court heard the girl got into the car and was driven to nearby bushland where they got out. However, she began screaming as Darken cable-tied her hands and covered her mouth and eyes with duct tape, telling her: “shut up, or I’ll hurt you really bad.”
The girl was later driven to Port Kennedy IGA, where Darken gave her a $5 note and told her to go into the shop and buy him a Coca-Cola.
He drove off, but the girl, crying and distressed and still with cable ties around her wrists, was approached by shoppers who asked if she was OK.
Meanwhile, a parent at the school who witnessed the girl getting into Darken’s car took down the number plate and called police and the girl’s mother, who started frantically looking for her.
Darken was later arrested in Warnbro. He pleaded guilty to several charges following the incident.
On Tuesday, Judge Troy Sweeney said the ordeal was “the stuff of nightmares”.
“She’s old enough to remember what happened,” Sweeney told Darken.
“The more mature she gets the more understanding she’ll have … it’s sadly inevitable that she’ll be left with long-term scars.”
She told the 39-year-old his offending was “cunning and predatory”.
Sweeney also told the court Darken’s prior criminal history included being sentenced for arson.
The court heard Darken had a mild intellectual disability.
He was sentenced to 11 years and four months in prison and will be eligible for parole after nine years and four months, backdated to his arrest in July last year.
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