A CHILD abductor is behind bars after offering to pay youngsters £10 to help him investigate damage to his car.

Following his conviction of four counts of child abduction in 2017, Trevor Hallcup, from Peterlee, was banned from having contact with children under the age of 16.

But Durham Crown Court heard the 34-year-old, who had taken children for a “scary ride” in his van in 2015, breached a restraining order and when he asked three children to help him find out about damage caused to his car in a “vigilante” attack.

He offered to pay them £10 for information and also said they could come into his house to see his puppies, the court heard.

At the same hearing, Hallcup was sentenced for dangerous driving after tailgating an ambulance between Crimdon Dene, and Blackhall Colliery, in east Durham.

The court was shown dash cam footage, provided to the police by Hallcup, of him following the ambulance for about a mile and a half as it overtook traffic while responding to an emergency call on May 1.

Martin Towers, prosecuting, said the driver thought she was going to have to pull over because of the risk to public safety and at one point Hallcup had to serve to avoid crashing into the vehicle.

At the time, Hallcup was being investigated for another incident involving an ambulance, which had happened two weeks earlier and saw him driving in front of the emergency vehicle, between two lines of traffic.

Annelise Haugstad, mitigating, said: “He is someone who struggles to learn from negative experiences. He is also someone for whom a period of imprisonment is going to have a particularly detrimental effect.

“He is compelled to behave in the way he does. He believes he was escorting the ambulance and he believes he was authorised to carry out the investigation.”

She added: “It’s a compulsion he has little control over.”

Judge Christopher Prince gave Hallcup for 20 month prison sentence and a two-year driving ban.

He said: “Your driving was very dangerous and it caused real concern to the driver of the ambulance. This was an extraordinary form of driving.”

He added: “It’s very difficult to know quite what was going through your head when you approached these three children.

“There was little or no harm or distress caused to the children.”