Sex offender arrested in new abduction

EDMONTON, Alberta, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- A convicted child sex offender in Alberta was arrested for the weekend abduction of a 7-year-old girl in Edmonton, police said.

Police said they arrested 44-year-old Danial Gratton in a house several blocks from the playground where the child was allegedly lured into a Jeep with an offer of kittens, the Edmonton Journal said.

Gratton was charged with sexual assault, sexual interference, kidnapping, abduction of a person under 14 and administering a noxious substance, the Winnipeg Sun reported.

The girl was dropped off at a restaurant in a town 75 miles west of Edmonton several hours after she was abducted. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who retrieved her said the child appeared drowsy, the newspapers said.

Gratton was arrested in December 2000 and admitted he repeatedly abused five girls and a boy between the ages of 2 and 8 between 1996 and 2000, the Journal said. He was sent to prison in 2002 on a six-year sentence, declared a dangerous offender, banned from public places where children gather and placed on a supervision order for 10 years after his release, the Journal said.