Twins snatched from care home found safe and well
TWINS at the centre of a nationwide alert after being snatched from a care home were found safe and well in a car at a petrol station just 60 miles from their hometown.
The father of four-year-olds Billy Blu Francis and Vixen Rae Francis had pleaded for the public’s help after they went
missing last week.
Lincolnshire Police said a 62-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman had been arrested and that the twins were now back in foster care.
Detective Inspector Andy Wardell said: “They are both bouncing and in really good health.
“When I saw them they were .sitting drawing in the police officers’ notebooks. They are absolutely safe and well.”
Mr Wardell revealed that the arrests had come within hours of police receiving a tip-off.
“We acted on information,” he said. “Following the line of inquiry we located Billy and Vixen safe and well.”
There were fears they might have taken to the Irish Republic and there were possible sightings in Cumbria, Scotland and Wales. But shortly before midnight on Tuesday, police saw them at a petrol station on the A17 near Newark, Notts.
The twins were taken from a social services care centre in their home town of Skegness, Lincolnshire.
Two social workers were monitoring a visit from the twins’ grandmother on Thursday last week when they disappeared.
The children’s father, William Francis, a 31-year-old electrician from Greenwich, south-east London, said he was “livid” about social services’ handling of the case.
A Lincolnshire Police spokesman yesterday said: “Police officers approached a car at a petrol station and arrested a man and a woman on suspicion of kidnap.
“They are at Lincoln Police Station where they will be questioned.”