A man who snatched a seven-year-old boy just yards from his front door was jailed.
Daniel Fewtrell, described as a prisoner at Kilmarnock, led his trusting victim away from safety as the child’s horrified brother watched helplessly.
The 33-year-old was found guilty by a jury in the town’s court.
The boy’s older brother dropped him off outside his home after driving him home from a visit to his granny.
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He said: “I texted my mum from the car to say he was there and to come down the stairs for him.
“He walked into the close and the guy walked in behind him and as the door closed I could hear shouting and crying.
“It was my little brother and he was just crying ‘I want to go home’.
“I jumped out the car but by the time I got to the door it was shut. There was nothing I could do.”
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Fewtrell, who had just left a pub, had taken the boy straight out the back of the close in Galston and made off with him.
The boy’s frantic mother ran outside and was able to track down her son’s cries to a flat in the town, where she was joined outside by her husband and others.
The 39-year-old told Kilmarnock Sheriff Court: “I heard him shouting ‘Just let me go home. I want to see my mum and dad.’”
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She said the boy was “traumatised and grey” and still sobbing when Fewtrell opened the door.
Her husband said he hurried with his wife to Fewtrell’s flat and heard his son crying: “I want my mummy and daddy. Let me go. I want to go home.”
He added: “The man burst out the door and I said ‘What are you doing with my boy in your house?’
“You don’t expect that to happen.”
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He said Fewtrell was bare-chested, had one sock on and one off and was threatening him.
The dad added: “He was banging his chest saying, ‘Me and you bruv, skin on skin.’ He was jumping about like a bouncy ball.”
This week Fewtrell appeared from remand at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court and Sheriff Alastair Watson sentenced him to three years in prison.
