This is the former US Airforce commander who is on trial accused of kidnapping a nine-year-old French girl outside Harrods before allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting her.
The court heard Robert Prussak, 57, approached the confused child after she was separated from her family as they entered the historic store during a holiday in London.
CCTV shown in court shows the American pilot enjoying lunch at Gaucho shortly before he walks past Harrods and spots the young girl looking for her parents.
After initially walking past the child he returns to approach her and begins talking to her via a translating app.
Prussak, who served in the US military for almost 20 years, was then seen leading the young girl to a serviced apartment he was staying in half a mile away.
Robert Prussak (pictured), 57, is on trial accused of kidnapping a nine-year-old French girl outside Harrods before allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting her
Prussack (pictured) approached the confused child after she was separated from her family as they entered the historic store during a holiday in London
The girl is kept inside the apartment in Chelsea Cloisters for almost two hours where Isleworth Crown Court heard she was drugged with an ‘antihistamine with marked sedative effects’
Earlier she told the court she sat on his sofa watching TV, and he offered her two glasses of water, which she said she drank.
She said the water tasted ‘bitter and a bit strange’, and that she felt tired after drinking it.
‘I felt like closing my eyes, and I felt like going to sleep,’ she said.
She said she was then taken to a nearby park, where he is alleged to have sexually assaulted her.
‘He touched my tummy…He pulled down my trousers. He kissed me on both cheeks and the mouth,’ she said.
CCTV later shows Prussak dropping the girl off at Kensington Fire Station where she frantically tries to open the locked the doors.
When she is unable to enter, she runs back to her abductor and the pair are then approached by armed police officers who arrested the pilot.
Prussak, who served in the US military for almost 20 years, was then seen leading the young girl from outside Harrods (pictured) to a serviced apartment he was staying in half a mile away
The child’s worried parents had raised the alarm within minutes of her disappearing and described their panic to the court via video link.
They had told police that as they were entering Harrods they were ‘so mesmerised by the size of the building that they momentarily were not paying attention to the children’.
Her father said he had spent the day travelling around London with his wife and three children, visiting Buckingham Palace before stopping at Harrods.
He said the family realised that his daughter was not with them when they entered the department store adding: ‘We started panicking.’
He told the court how his wife started searching the street outside for their child, while he looked inside the sprawling store.
Harrods staff checked the CCTV and police arrived who soon showed him a harrowing image of his daughter walking away with a man he did not recognise.
‘I understood it was much more serious than what I thought,’ he said.
‘At first, when the minutes were passing by, I thought she was lost, but when I saw the picture of the man I thought she could have been abducted,’ he said.
The girl’s mother also described the moment police showed her the photo of her daughter walking away with a strange man.
‘I was out of words, I could not believe it,’ she said.
‘I was very stressed, but I tried to keep calm for the other children.’
The jury also heard evidence from, a French-speaking customer services worker at Harrods who translated for the parents.
She said staff at the department store sprung into action after the parents informed them that their child was missing.
She said the girl’s father appeared to have a ‘mental breakdown’ adding: ‘He was very uncomfortable with the situation…..I remember there were times I even saw him crying.’
Prussak, who appeared in court from custody, denies three counts of sexual assault of a child under the age of 13.
He also denies one count of kidnapping, one count of committing an offence of kidnapping with an intent to commit a sexual offence, and one count of administering a substance with intent.
The trial continues.
