Stanley Tippett has been convicted of sexually assaulting and kidnapping a 12-year-old girl in Peterborough, Ont. (Peter Redman/Canadian Press)

Stanley Tippett, a father of five, was convicted Wednesday of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in Peterborough, Ont., in 2008.

The Oshawa girl was abducted after leaving a birthday party in Peterborough on Aug. 6, 2008. She was found several hours later, half-naked, behind a high school 75 kilometres away.

Tippett was found guilty of all seven counts he was facing, including kidnapping, sexual assault and sexual interference.

In evidence presented at the trial, the court was told the victim had left the party with two other girls and was last seen getting into a van. When she failed to turn up at her grandmother's home as planned, police were called.

About an hour later, someone phoned Durham Regional Police to report hearing a girl screaming behind a high school in Courtice, southwest of Peterborough.

Police pursued a red minivan speeding away from the high school but called off the chase when the vehicle entered a residential area.

The van was found abandoned a short time later in Oshawa. Police traced it to Tippett, 33, who was arrested and charged.

The girl, who cannot be identified because of her age, was found in a wooded area behind Courtice Secondary School and taken to hospital for treatment.

Police said she had been sexually assaulted. Her parents said she had been badly beaten and doesn't remember much about the assault.

In testimony during Tippett's trial, the victim, now 13, said she had no memory of consuming alcohol at the party, or of the assault.

Offered to help, trial heard

Evidence presented at the trial said that Tippett pulled up in a red van and offered to help the intoxicated victim who was with her two older friends. The three girls had earlier drunk a 26-ounce bottle of rum.

"He got out of the car and put his arms under her armpits," and pulled her over to a nearby bench, one witness testified.

"He said he was calling the police and the ambulance ... because she was so intoxicated."

One of the girls left to find help. When she returned the van and her friends were gone. Tippett dropped the other friend at a nearby park and told her he was taking the victim to hospital.

"I had no reason to think that she wasn't going to be safe," the teen testified earlier this year.

Tippett had pleaded not guilty to all charges, claiming he hadn't attacked the girl.

He told the court in Peterborough that he had been kidnapped at gunpoint with the victim passed out in the back of his vehicle. The carjackers stole his minivan, he said, and he had nothing to do with the girl's disappearance.

He told the court he had been hit on the head with a wrench by the thieves and dumped in a ditch.

He also claimed he was out late the same night because he had to get a blood transfusion at a Toronto hospital.

Outside the court, the girl's grandmother said she was "more than happy with the verdict."

"At least this way maybe he can't hurt another child," she said.

The victim was in court for the verdict and the woman said her granddaughter wanted to be there to "start her own healing."