A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a child welfare campaigner who was due in court to be sentenced for an abuduction conspiracy.

Stuart Carnie is head of the Total Freedom for Children movement and hit the headlines after announcing he was planning a website to expose child sex offenders.

He appeared on BBC Scotland and revealed plans to name and shame known peadophiles in the name of protecting innocent children.

The 37-year-old was due at Newcastle Crown Court today to be sentenced after admitting his part in an elaborate scam to hide a nine-year-old girl from the care of social services.

But after making a telephone call to his solicitors claiming he had missed his train from Aberdeen, he failed to show up in court.

Defence barrister Caroline Goodwin said it would have taken him five hours to arrive in Newcastle if he caught the next train.

But after hearing of the blunder, Judge Guy Whitburn said: "It does not suprise me in the slightest in my view of the probation report I have received, which speaks of a negative attitude."

Prosecutor Robert Adams applied for a bench warrant to be issued and Judge Whitburn showed no hesitation in granting it.

He will now be arrested and brought before the courts for failing to answer to bail, as well as the original matter.

Carnie admitted helping the family, who cannot be named, because they feared that the girl would be made the subject of a court order after her 11-year-old brother was taken into care.

The boy had been removed from the family home they shared with their parents and grandparents on January 10 1999 when Sunderland Social Services alleged that his mother had fictitious illness syndrome, also known as munchausen's syndrome by proxy

The girl's parents and grandmother then took part in a plot to keep the girl and enlisted child welfare campaigners to help.

Newcastle Crown Court had heard how the girl's grandmother fled to Ireland with the youngster before being met by Stuart Carnie, 37, who travelled with them through Ireland and Scotland to a pre-arranged safe-house.

Updated: 15.47 Friday, July 20