IT IS any mother’s worst nightmare. To have a child snatched from them in broad daylight.

It became a horrible reality for one mother when two seemingly “sweet” young girls befriended her daughter, only to vanish with her minutes later.

Witnesses described the “utterly distraught” mother banging her head against the wall at the sheer terror of what may have befallen her two-year-old.

CCTV footage shown in Newcastle Crown Court yesterday captured the moment in Primark, in Northumberland Street, Newcastle, when she frantically started looking for her child – pushing an empty buggy in front of her.

The same CCTV system caught the culprits – two girls aged 14 and 13 – as they led their victim to a lift.

In footage hauntingly reminiscent of the notorious James Bulger kidnapping, the teenagers are then seen walking away down the busy street, with the toddler holding the hand of the older girl.

Mercifully, she was found “relatively swiftly” three miles away, in a park in Gosforth.

Sarah Barlow, prosecuting, told the court how the kidnappers had skipped school and spent hours in the Primark waiting for a child to abduct, on April

13.

They had already approached two others, and almost tricked the mother of one of them when they tried to lead her daughter away.

They had engaged that child’s mother by saying the little one was “beautiful”.

When mother realised her daughter was gone, the older girl tried to put her off the scent by pointing her in the opposite direction to which her accomplice was leading the child.

The mother found her daughter and thanked the girls, thinking they were helping her.

Miss Barlow said the film demonstrated the two kidnappers were “working together, quite co-ordinated” and showed “a degree of planning or at least communication between the two”.

At times they left the Primark store and briefly went into the nearby Boots store, where they later admitted stealing a dummy.

They returned to the clothes store and went to the children’s section where, at around 4pm, they began talking to their victim.

After taking the toddler away from the mother, they led her to a lift before heading straight on to the Metro system and around three miles away to the town of Gosforth.

A shopper saw the defendants, who are white, with the toddler who was described in court as “mixed race” and she believed it did not look “quite right”, Miss Barlow said.

When he asked if the girl was alright, one of the kidnappers said everything was fine.

Miss Barlow said the CCTV from the lift showed the girls looking anxious, indicating “they knew at that stage what they were doing was wrong”.

On the Metro system, witnesses saw them giving the girl sweets and offering her Coca-Cola. One of them was overheard saying: “Don’t worry, we will get you to your mummy.”

Miss Barlow added: “Of course she was not, she was travelling in the opposite direction.”

Once they arrived in Gosforth, they took the back lanes and were seen swinging her between them playfully.

They tried to take the girl to a soft play area but were not allowed in, then went to a Sainsbury’s where they stole the bottle and milk in a bid to keep the toddler quiet.

They then took her to the swings in a park beside the High Street where police arrested them.

The court was told that the child was unharmed, but for a change in hairstyle.

Her mother, however, had suffered extensive psychological damage and still has recurring nightmares about what had happened and what might have happened to her daughter.

“One can only imagine what she went through when she found that her two-year-old baby was missing from the shopping centre,” said Mr Justice Globe. She continued understandably to have nightmares about what happened and about what might have happened.

“She won’t let her out of her sight any more.

“She’s constantly worrying about her and other children.”