Wednesday, October 30, 2024Â – A US Air Force captain has been
charged with making indecent images of a child after being cleared of
kidnapping, drugging and then sexually assaulting a nine-year-old French girl.
Robert Prussak, 57, had been accused of abducting the
schoolgirl outside of London’s famed Harrods department store on April 22.
The American was on Tuesday, October 29, found ‘not guilty’
of all six charges levelled against him at Isleworth Crown Court.
Shortly after leaving the courtroom to celebrate his
freedom, Prussak was dramatically arrested on suspicion of possessing and
making an indecent image of a child.
It followed a probe by the Metropolitan Police into
child sex offences, after an indecent image was allegedly found on an
electronic device.
Father-of-two Prussak, of no fixed address, was detained
overnight, with the Met announcing on Wednesday morning he had been charged
with child sex offences.
He has since been remanded in custody and is due to appear
at Westminster Magistrates’ Court later today.
During his trial at Isleworth Crown Court, jurors were told
how Prussak had approached the child outside Harrods after she became separated
from her family during a holiday in London on
April 22.
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 American aviator also told jurors 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’.
Pressed on what his intention was, he said: ‘To keep her
safe and reunite her with her parents.’
Mr Prussak said his goal was ‘keeping on track to a museum
and keeping her safe and comfortable’.
When asked why they did not go to the museum, he said it
started to rain more heavily and they had not seen the girl’s parents.
The pilot said they went to his flat to search for a police
station as his apartment was ‘very close by’ and he knew ‘how to get there
quickly’.
He said: ‘I had found three police stations on Google Maps
but there didn’t seem to be a direct route to any of them.
‘It started raining and the rain was dropping on my phone so
because my apartment was near, I thought it would be best to go there.’
While there, he gave her a drink of water and let her watch
TV.
Tests of the girl’s urine after she was found detected
Diphenhydramine – the active ingredient in Benadryl, prompting an allegation
that Mr Prussak had spiked the drink he gave her with the sedative.
But tests of the glasses in Mr Prussak’s apartment showed no
evidence of Benadryl.
Mr Prussak said the girl used the word ‘bite’, and a
few discussions later he ‘figured’ she meant ‘bitter’, then tested his own
water from the same bottle and said it tasted ‘normal’.
Mr Prussak said he and the girl left his apartment after he
had found a nearby fire station on his iPad, where he intended to seek help.
They followed a Google Maps route which took them through
Hyde Park – and later bumped into police officers outside the Israeli Embassy.
Mr Prussak had insisted to jurors: ‘I did not touch [the
girl] in the way she described. I’m not sure why she would say that.’
Asked by his barrister whether he would have done things
differently now, he admitted: ‘In hindsight, knowing now that her parents were
in Harrods, staying at that spot or going inside would have been the best
solution.
‘But at that point I was told they weren’t shopping so I
thought I had to find the parents or the police.’
Catherine Donnelly, defending, put to him the allegation
that he put Benadryl in the water, and asked him if he did that, he responded
‘no’.
She then asked: ‘The allegation is you did that to put her
to sleep or stupefy her or something of that nature, did you do that?’
Mr Prussak responded: ‘No.’
Mr Donnelly asked her client why he did not call the police.
Mr Prussak said: ‘I absolutely regret not calling the police
sooner. I had never done it before and I didn’t know what response I would get.
‘I was scared they would send in the cavalry and the
ambulances and everything. I thought I could get there more efficiently.’
