A husband and wife lured little girls away from their parents at weddings, stole their jewellery and abandoned them to their fate, lost in a strange city.

The Bradford couple began jail sentences after the abductions of six girls as young as five years old.

One nine-year-old, from Luton in Bedfordshire, was tricked by the promise of sweets into leaving a wedding at the Karmand Community Centre in Barkerend Road. She handed over a £200 gold bracelet and was abandoned in Upper Seymour Street.

"She was alone in a strange city. She was on her own for about two hours. It's thanks only to local residents that she was found and returned to the safety of her parents," prosecutor Stephen Wood told Bradford Crown Court.

The court had heard that mother-of-one Rukhsana Akram dressed in traditional wedding clothing to gate-crash weddings before befriending children and luring them away.

Akram, 27, was yesterday jailed for a total of 32 months. Her husband, Dawood Akram, was sentenced to 18 months. Rukhsana Akram, who had been jailed in 2002 for obtaining money by deception, struck at two weddings at the Manningham Sports Centre and two others at the Karman Community Centre and the Marlborough Centre.

Mr Wood said the offences followed a disturbing pattern: Akram would mingle and befriend small children and lure them away from the gathering. In the streets outside she would make excuses to persuade them to hand over their jewellery.

The first abduction took place at the Manningham Sports Centre when Akram took two girls aged seven and five to a grassed area nearby. She asked to look at their jewellery and after they both handed over a gold necklace and ring she left, saying she would buy sweets. She never returned.

A month later, Akram abducted the girl from Luton. Then, the next month, it was the turn of an eight-year-old girl from Birmingham, whose family were at a wedding at the Marlborough Centre on Carlisle Road.

Mr Wood said Akram walked the girl to Lister Park where she was told to hand over £300 worth of jewellery for safe-keeping before Akram left her locked in a toilet for half-an-hour.

"She was released by a man who came to her assistance," said Mr Wood.

A week later Akram befriended two girls aged ten and six at another wedding at the Manningham Sports Centre. Having taken them to buy sweets she demanded their jewellery worth more than £1,000.

Akram's husband became involved when he was contacted by phone and turned up in a car to pick up his wife and the two girls.

The court heard Dawood Akram was a disqualified driver and the couple's baby son was asleep in the rear of the car at the time.

The two girls were dropped off and found by a member of the public who took them back to the sports centre.

The Akrams were arrested at their home in Sewell Road, Laisterdyke in July 2003 and charged with abduction and theft.

Dawood Akram had denied the allegations of abduction and theft but was found guilty after a three-day trial last month.

Judge Jennifer Kershaw sentenced Rukhsana Akram to two years in jail for the six child abduction offences but added a further eight months for the deception offences committed while on bail.

"The families of those various small children must have been distraught with worry and anxiety for the admittedly short periods of time which their children were missing," she told Rukhsana Akram.

"The risk of those small children being found by the wrong person instead of, as it happened, the right person was considerable," she said.

Judge Kershaw said she had taken the view Dawood Akram's role was a subordinate one and he was jailed for 18 months and banned from driving for 12 months.

Detective Inspector Gerry O' Shea branded what the couple had done as "despicable".

He said: "Our officers worked long and hard to bring these offenders to justice because of the despicable nature of these offences against very young children."