US Air Force captain is found not guilty of abducting Harrods girl
PUBLISHED: 12:28 GMT, 29 October 2024
A US Air Force pilot cried today as he was cleared of kidnapping a nine-year-old French girl outside Harrods before drugging and sexually assaulting her.
Robert Prussak, 57, broke down as 'not guilty' verdicts were read out to all six of the charges levelled against him at Isleworth Crown Court.
It was said previously that the defendant had approached the child outside Harrods after she became separated from her family on April 22, during a holiday in London.
The prosecution alleged he then led her back to his hotel apartment and drugged her – before taking her to Hyde Park and inappropriately touching her.
But Mr Prussak's evidence was that he was 'only trying to help' the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and wanted to keep her 'safe'.
The father-of-two also told jurors that he decided to help when he spotted her because he would have wanted someone to help his own daughters.
He said: 'When I spotted her, I thought she seemed lost because she was looking around – like she was searching for someone.
'But then I thought maybe she was waiting for someone inside the shop and so I walked on.
'But as I did, I thought, what if she is lost – and needs help? My mind went straight to my daughters who are a few years older than her.
'I thought if my daughters were lost in a big city, I wouldn't want them stuck there alone.'
The pilot spoke to the girl and she answered in another language so he started communicating with her using the Google Translate app, jurors heard.
Mr Prussak said he asked the girl how long it had been since she saw her parents and she raised three fingers, which he took to mean three minutes.
He claimed to have asked the nine-year-old if her parents were shopping, but said the girl told him her family had been heading to a museum, but was not sure which one.
Mr Prussak said he started walking with the girl towards a museum to 'hopefully intercept the parents' and searched on his phone for police stations and 'surprisingly they were fairly far'.