A man who phoned police to claim he had abducted missing schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman has been given a four month jail sentence by Wrexham magistrates.

Howard Mark Youde, 45, from Hope, in Flintshire, but who has since moved to Blackley, Manchester, had pleaded guilty at a hearing in October.

The court was told that Youde - who has a string of previous convictions, including impersonating a police officer - had rung the Cambridgeshire police incident room three times.

He made the calls from a phone box in Wrexham on 15 August, at the height of the investigation into the disappearance of the two girls.

The bodies of the girls, from the village of Soham, were found two days later on remote fenland in Suffolk.

Ian Huntley, 28, of Soham, is awaiting trial, accused of murdering the girls. He is also charged with conspiring with Maxine Carr - now his former girlfriend - to attempt to pervert the course of justice.

Ian Huntley is awaiting trial for the girls' murder

Magistrates were told that Youde had asked to speak to detective leading the hunt.

The call was traced to a public telephone box in Brook Street,Wrexham, and Youde was identified on CCTV footage and arrested in the early hours of the next morning - initially on suspicion of abducting the two schoolgirls.

His actions led to 27 hours and 40 minutes of wasted police work, and he was arrested in the early hours of 16 August.

Youde's defence was that he had been drunk at the time of the offences. He had been drinking heavily all day and had no memory of making the calls.

Waste of time

He was also given a one month concurrent sentence in relation to an unconnected incident he had admitted - committing an act of gross indecency with a 21-year-old man in the toilets of Piccadilly railway station, Manchester.

Chair of the bench Lady Kenyon told Youde the court took the hoax call very seriously.

"It is an extremely serious offence to waste police time for more than 27 hours," she said.

"In your previous convictions you have impersonated a police officer - a pattern of behaviour that is detrimental to the public trust in the police.

"Your behaviour suggests you are not accepting responsibility for those offences."

Lady Kenyon ordered he should serve just half the four month sentence - before being released and continuing a community rehabiliation order due to finish in October 2003.

He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for seven years on completion of his jail term.