A WOMAN was stopped at Dover attempting to take a young girl out of the country, a court heard.

Eloise Jane Edwards was arrested at the southern port as she tried to take the child, who cannot be named for legal reasons, onto a cross-Channel ferry.

Edwards, who was living in Spain at the time, was stopped in October last year with the Darwen youngster.

At court Edwards, 26, pleaded guilty to taking a child without consent.

Judge Norman Wright said: "This behaviour cannot be condoned but I am quite satisfied that she did not wish to take this girl away forever."

Sara Dodd, prosecuting, had told the court that Edwards, who gave her address as Willand Close, Bolton, intended to keep the girl abroad.

The court heard that Edwards was stopped by police in Dover in October last year after the alarm was raised in East Lancashire.

She was travelling without the little girl's passport and told officers that they were going for a holiday.

Edwards said they had left Bolton at midnight on Wednesday, October 24 before trying to board the ferry at 7am.

From there she planned to drive through France and arrive at her home in Alicante, in Spain's Costa del Sol on Thursday afternoon.

Judge Wright asked for a full background report to be prepared by the probation service before Edwards is sentenced next month.