Antonia Forest fans

As I indicate above, the abduction isn't as clear cut in this instance as it might be, at least not taking into account the ages of the children in question and the relevant era. If there had not been "something up North last month" there's every chance Uncle Gerry would have got away with it, even if apprehended (the police would have taken the view, no doubt, that he was a very suspicious character, and perhaps tried to keep a look out for him doing something he could be pulled in for, but I'm not sure they've even got enough to detain him in cells overnight, let alone charge him). The problem areas, and the ones Uncle Gerry's defence would latch on to are: a) Rose is nine and already independently on her way to her old house in Oxford. What Uncle Gerry does there is see that she gets there (a stroke of genius on his part) - he does not take her anywhere that she doesn't want to go, and he doesn't use force to get her there. b) Rose is nine - old enough to give evidence but subject to special cautions to the jury about the weight that may be put on her evidence - and, more to the point, operating under a delusion that her mother is not dead and her father has been lying to her on this point. This immediately puts the rest of her evidence under enhanced scrutiny. Uncle Gerry only has to say that she told him that her mother was waiting at the house and that he, disturbed by the risk of her wandering around, agreed to take her there, and the odds are she'll get sufficiently confused in the witness box to agree that it might have happened like that. c) Nicola is more of a problem, but Nicola arrives on the scene late and can't give evidence as to the initial representations Uncle Gerry made to Rose to get her to come along with him. Nicola clearly makes up her mind that something is "off" from an early stage and goes for Gerry with a knife (a knife!) before he does anything other than exactly what he says he was going to do so all along, namely make sure Rose gets home. Her evidence is therefore potentially tainted by her "overreaction" - especially since she barely knows Rose.

There's not much of a case against him; it's really Nicola having the nerve and good judgement to trust her instincts, and that never goes well in the witness box when it's a girl doing it.