A SCHOOLGIRL playing outside her home with a friend from school found the six-year-old kidnap victim trembling and crying in a Hapton back alley.

Eight-year-old Ruby Trudgill was playing with her friend Harrison at around 4.30pm on Thursday when they came across the girl, who had been snatched from opposite a school in Nairne Street in Burnley.

Her dad, 40-year-old Bosch service engineer Mark, said: “I picked them up from school. They were watching TV and asked if they could go and play in the front yard.

“Twenty minutes later they came in with this young girl who I did not know.

“She was trembling like a leaf and was crying so I went over and asked what was wrong.

“She said a man took her.”

Mr Trudgill called his wife, 36-year-old childcare worker Paula, and police.

He said: “I sat her down in the front room and tried to calm her down.

“She told me she was playing out and a man said there was a ball under the car and asked if she could get it.

“When she went to get it, he picked her up and put her in the boot.

“He said he would drive her home but he didn’t.

“They stopped somewhere and she said all she could see were bushes.

“The man had his pants down and asked her to touch him.

“He put her back in the boot and she was left on a back street around the corner from our house.

“It’s very worrying that there’s a paedophile locally.

“It makes you stop and think.”

Mr Trudgill said a police officer arrived within 10 minutes of his call, with CID turning up shortly afterwards.

Officers spent hours yesterday carrying out door-to-door enquiries in the street, asking residents if they had any information.