Swansea police tipped off a man on how to find an alleged child molester accused of abducting and abusing a two-yearold relative.

Leslie Brain, of Penygraig Road, Townhill, then launched a revenge attack on the suspect after a sympathetic policeman revealed the address.

Brain admitted attacking the man and was sentenced to three years in prison.

It was claimed at Bristol Crown Court that officers in Swansea shared Brain's frustration that the man had not been brought to justice and revealed his new home address 120 miles away in Swindon.

The court was told Brain, aged 59, had actually caught the man during a search after the little girl was abducted from outside her Swansea home in 1992.

He found her in parkland holding the man's hand. Her underwear had been removed. Brain tried to detain the man and suffered a severe bite in the struggle. Police were called but the man was not prosecuted.

An investigation by the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to charge the alleged abductor.

Brain then launched a one-man campaign to have the man brought before the courts. He wrote to his MP Donald Anderson, and contacted the then Director of Public Prosecutions Barbara Mills. The CPS reviewed the case but again decided not to proceed.

On August 19, Brain and friend Henry Carter, aged 32, drove to Swindon and attacked the victim on the doorstep of his new home. Brain knocked him down and kicked him numerous times to the head. Carter kicked his body.

Nicholas O'Brien, for the prosecution, said a neighbour who witnessed the attack described the pair as using the victim like a football. She took their car registration number and they were arrested on the M4 heading back to Swansea.

Brain's barrister Margaritte Russell said he had always found it difficult to understand why the man had not been prosecuted for abducting the little girl or for putting him in hospital for several days.

She said: "A number of police officers locally have some sympathy for there being no prosecution. That's how he got the address. "It is nothing short of a tragedy that he was given the information that he was. "It was like lighting a touch paper. The years of frustration came to fruition." She described Brain as "quite an exceptional person, a man people turn to for help. He is a generous, loving man".

She said her client, who was an approved foster parent, was in the pub when the idea was hatched it was not a premeditated attack.

The victim, who was not named, still suffers hearing problems because of the revenge attack.

Carter, of Lon Cedwyn, Sketty, Swansea, admitted causing grievous bodily harm, driving while disqualified and drink driving. He was jailed for 21 months and banned from driving for three years.

Judge Susan Darwall-Smith said "This was a serious, violent attack. You, Brain, were the instigator of the plan and it was your grievance and not that of Mr Carter.

"Whatever the background, and I accept there was indeed a background, there is no justification for taking the law into your own hands." #

No-one at South Wales Police was available to comment.