MARSEILLES, France, July 8 (UPI) -- A 41-year-old Belgian man has been charged with trying to abduct a Glasgow girl he befriended online.
Employees at the Marseilles Provence Airport in southern France found the 12-year-old girl crying, The Daily Telegraph reports. The man allegedly persuaded her to meet him in Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, near her family's vacation home, for a trip to Madrid but left her in the airport because she had no passport.
The man was taken off the plane before it left for Madrid and arrested.
French investigators say the girl's parents had not reported her missing, though she had been gone for about three hours when she was found at the airport. The family has since returned to Scotland.
The man allegedly met the girl on a social networking Web site and chatted with her for about four months, telling her he was 28.
John Carr of the Coalition on Internet Safety told BBC Radio Scotland the case shows why parents need to teach their children not to give away personal information online.
"It's about talking to your child and keeping open channels of communication so they feel that they can come and talk to you if something untoward does happen," he said.
