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A paedophile who was on the run for 20 years after abusing a girl has been jailed.

David Carey-Williams, now 58, from Bridgend, abused a girl for three years in the 1990s, and fled abroad in 2000 after she reported it to the police.

He was arrested at Heathrow Airport after trying to return to the UK unnoticed in 2021, police said.

Carey-Williams was jailed for 12 years and three months at Cardiff Crown Court on Friday.

South Wales Police said that over a three-year period Carey-Williams sexually touched and indecently assaulted his victim multiple times while she was aged 10 to 13.

He was charged with ten counts of sexual activity with a child and pleaded guilty to eight. The two counts he did not plead to lie on file.

'Tracked down in Sri Lanka'

In 2000, when his victim reported the crimes to the police, Carey-Williams flew to Lanzarote.

He was tracked down to Sri Lanka in 2013, with officers in Wales working with the National Crime Agency, the Foreign Office and Sri Lankan authorities to locate him.

When he was arrested in October 2021, police said Carey-Williams had evidence relating to the original offence on him.

South Wales Police's Det Supt Mark O'Shea said his victim endured anguish and heartache before her abuser was caught.

He said: "Now in her 30s, she had to wait far too long for justice because of the cynical, cowardly and calculated way in which Williams fled the UK.

"But I do hope that today's sentence will enable her to put this traumatic chapter behind her and move on with her life."