The mother’s horrific experience was recounted in Wagga District Court yesterday by Judge Jennifer English as she sentenced the kidnapper – 29-year-old Albury man Adam Gilbert Jolly – to 23 years in prison for five offences.

With time already served, Jolly will be eligible for parole on May 24, 2026.

The sentencing ended one of the darkest chapters in Wagga’s history.

It began when Jolly snatched the girl from outside her home on February 14, 2010 – Valentine’s Day.

He took the child to Gregadoo Road where he committed one act of indecency on the youngster.

Disturbed by a passer-by, Jolly then drove the girl to another location where he committed another act of indecency on her, attempted sexual intercourse and then had sexual intercourse.

After the 90-minute ordeal, Jolly dropped the child near her home, saying “you can walk from here”.

Judge English variously described Jolly’s crimes as

horrific, unspeakable acts and particularly gross.

The judge tried to fathom how the girl would have felt.

“Fear and terror would have been what this child experienced, and that fear and terror is something that is almost unimaginable,” Judge English said.

She spoke of a girl who had been robbed of her childhood; who is too scared to stay at birthday parties without her mother; who is afraid to fall asleep; who needs her bedroom light on all night and the windows locked; and who wet her pants when she heard about another kidnapping.

Judge English refused to hold Jolly’s mother accountable for her son’s actions despite the distraught woman blaming herself for the way he turned out.

“At the end of the day the offender is an adult,” Judge English said.

“He was not an 18 or 19-year-old trying to make his way in the world.

“He was 27 when he committed these horrific offences.”

Judge English said Jolly had taken the girl for his sexual gratification and perhaps revenge for his previous unsuccessful relationships with women.

She said Jolly had seen the child as vulnerable and a victim upon which he could extract revenge for being rebuffed by a woman on a previous Valentine’s Day.

Judge English said Jolly could have stopped his attack on the girl when he was disturbed in Gregadoo Road, but instead chose to commit worse offences at another location.

Judge English said in a written statement to the court, Jolly had taken umbrage at the media branding him the Valentine’s Day kidnapper, but she said that is what he was.

As a sniffling and shuffling Jolly was led to the court complex cells after being sentenced his inconsolable mother repeatedly cried “no, no, no” and the little girl’s mother walked quietly out of the courtroom.