SHEVAUN PENNINGTON thought that she was being whisked away on a romantic adventure with the punk rock fan she described to schoolfriends as her “American boyfriend”.

Little did the 12-year-old girl from Wigan know that Toby Studabaker, a former Bible school student, former US Marine and widower, was a user of child pornography suspected of impropriety with young girls.

As the unlikely couple toured Europe, Mr Studabaker saw television coverage about his abduction of Shevaun and contacted the FBI for advice. He appears to have persuaded the girl to sign a letter denying that he harmed her, then let her fly from Germany to Manchester before armed police arrested him in Frankfurt.

The story of how the disturbed US war veteran tricked a Lancashire schoolgirl into starting a relationship proves again how easily paedophiles can deceive children using the internet. But this time the British police outwitted the potential child molester by subjecting him to high-tech mind games of their own. After consulting FBI and British psychological profilers, detectives employed an ambitious strategy to manipulate the pair by controlling media coverage.

They hoped that planted reports would be seen by Mr Studabaker and Shevaun, either on satellite news coverage in a hotel room or websites in an internet café.

Journalists were told the full background to the case on condition that they reported nothing until the girl was found safe and well. The media were urged to shield Shevaun from their knowledge that her companion was a child sex pest in case she believed that he was being victimised and agreed to hide with him.

Police also begged the press not to alert Mr Studabaker that the FBI had found paedophile images on his home computer for fear that the former US Marine might panic and harm the girl. As part of the trap, Shevaun’s mother, Joanne, sent a carefully crafted message to her daughter, saying that she would be happy for the child to bring her boyfriend home.

The strategy worked. The capable Shevaun put herself on a flight from Stuttgart to Manchester, via Amsterdam, before joining her parents at a police station in Leigh, Lancashire.

Meanwhile, Mr Studabaker was ambushed in a bustling shopping centre near the US consulate in Frankfurt by armed police. He faces possible extradition to Britain for abducting a child.

Shevaun is one of unknown multitudes of children who spend their spare time in cyberspace befriending invisible strangers. Although her mother tried to restrict her internet sessions on the kitchen-table computer to five hours at a time, police discovered she would often spend 11 hours at her screen.

In chatrooms where users are required to hide their identities behind bogus nicknames, she met Mr Studabaker a year ago, around the time his wife, Jenny, died of cancer. The Studabakers were childless.

The bond between girl and man became closer. They exchanged e-mails and letters. An “American friend” began calling Shevaun at Lowton Community High School. Mr Studabaker would spend six hours a day on the net, sending pictures of himself to his admirer.

Profilers have studied the huge number of messages between the pair for clues to their thoughts. “They have developed a very strong relationship. They love each other and have strong feelings for each other,” a source said.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Tree stump 'shows image of Virgin Mary'
• BBC drops Strictly judge for younger model
• Trafalgar Square 'reduced to a spectacle'