Parents describe ‘panic’ before learning daughter, 9, was 'kidnapped' outside Harrods, court hears
22 October 2024, 18:40 | Updated: 22 October 2024, 19:24
The father of a nine-year-old French girl who went missing outside Harrods began to consider she could have been abducted after being shown a photo of her walking away with a stranger, a court heard.
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Robert Prussak, 57, approached the girl outside the department store after she became separated from her family during a trip to London from France on 22 April last year, Isleworth Crown Court heard.
The American pilot is accused of kidnapping, drugging and sexually assaulting the girl, and denies all the charges against him.
The jury was shown CCTV footage of the moment a man - who the prosecution allege was Mr Prussack - was seen walking past the girl outside Harrods before stopping to speak to her.
The pair then communicated for a while using his phone, before walking away together.
The girl's father, speaking via videolink from France, told the court that Harrods staff checked the CCTV after he told them their daughter was missing.
When the police arrived, the girl's parents gave them a photo of their daughter to help the search before a police officer showed him a photo of his daughter walking away with a man he did not recognise, the court heard.
He said that he then “understood it was much more serious” than he had initially thought and began to consider the possibility that his daughter had been abducted.
"At first, when the minutes were passing by, I thought she was lost, but when I saw the picture of the man I thought she could have been abducted," he said.
The girl's mother also described the moment police showed her the photo of her daughter walking away with a strange man.
"I was out of words, I could not believe it," she said.
She said the three hours her daughter was missing were "very stressful". "It was very stressful, we were in the lounges of Harrods upstairs. I was very stressed, but I tried to keep calm for the children," she said.
Other footage shown to the court showed Mr Prussak and the girl entering Chelsea Cloisters and heading into his apartment, spending almost two hours inside before leaving and walking through central London again.
The nine-year-old girl was also cross-examined by Catherine Donnelly, defending, on Tuesday.
She said she was not crying, but she was sad when she became separated from her parents.
Ms Donnelly also asked her about her evidence that she began to feel tired after drinking "strange" tasting water given to her by Mr Prussak in his flat.
The girl said she did not think that water in the UK tasted different from water in France.
She also said that while she did not feel anything "just right after" drinking the water, "a little bit after" she felt tired.
Ms Donnelly asked her if she took any medicine while she was in Mr Prussak's flat, or earlier in the day.
She said she had not.
Mr Prussak, of no fixed address, was arrested outside the Israeli embassy in west London, with footage of him being approached by police and separated from the girl played to the jury.
He has denied three counts of sexual assault of a child under the age of 13.
The 57-year-old also denies one count of kidnapping, one count of committing an offence of kidnapping with an intent to commit a sexual offence, and one count of administering a substance with intent.
The trial continues.
