June 2015 Plumber who abducted 12-year-old schoolgirl jailed A plumber who abducted a 12-year-old schoolgirl after offering her a lift to school in his work van has been jailed for two and a half years. Lee Doze, 33, of Thurrock coaxed the girl into his vehicle outside Costcutter in Longwood Gardens, Ilford, Essex. Doze then drove her around the area for nearly an hour and asked her if she had ever kissed a boy or had a boyfriend. The victim told how Doze parked up in an alleyway and asked her to get some nails out of the van, then tried to force her into the back with him.  May 2015 Thurrock man faces jail after kidnap of girl A THURROCK plumber who kidnapped a 12-year-old schoolgirl after offering her a lift to school in his work van is facing jail. Lee Doze, 33, coaxed the girl into his van outside Costcutter in Longwood Gardens, Ilford. Doze then drove her around the area for nearly an hour and asked her if she had ever kissed a boy or had a boyfriend. The victim told how Doze parked up in an alleyway and asked her to get some nails out of the back of the van, then tried to force her into the back with him. She said she managed to escape his grip and returned to the front seat of the van and pleaded with Doze to take her to school. Doze was convicted of kidnapping following a week-long trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court, but cleared of sexual assault of a child under 13. In a taped police interview the victim said: “I kept thinking ‘How am I going to get to school? I don’t know where I am’ – I just felt I shouldn’t have got in the van in the first place, I should have just walked to school myself. “He was just driving around and around the same roads,” she said.
“He asked me if I’d ever had a boyfriend or if I’d ever kissed a boy – I said no, I haven’t. He kept saying ‘Why do you want to go to school?’ He kept touching my hair – he stopped about five times, he was just sitting there, he didn’t say anything. “I said ‘I need to get to school’ and he said ‘later’, then he drove off to the alley way – I thought ‘Why is he saying later, I need to get to school now.’ “He drove me to the alleyway and he stopped again, he asked me to pick up some nails from the back of the van so I did it and he tried to push me into the back of the van.” She returned to her seat and Doze drove off in silence but she managed to escape as he sat in traffic. Doze, from Edmund Road, Chafford Hundred, denied abducting the girl, claiming they had just been chatting about problems she had been having with her mother. He said: “I told her about things that were happening in my home – I was trying to make her see that it wasn’t just her mum having a go at her, it happens in all families. I was cutting through the back roads to avoid traffic – it just happened to be the way I drove when I was talking. It was just a way to avoid traffic.’ Judge Louise Kamill remanded Doze in custody ahead of sentence in four week’s time. Doze, denied but was convicted of one count of kidnap.He was cleared of one count of sexual assault of a child under 13.