A former French soldier who admitted kidnapping and killing an eight-year-old girl he abducted from a wedding reception has insisted her death was “a mistake” but still refuses to give details of how she died. At his long-awaited trial Nordahl Lelandais, 38, apologised to the family of Maelys De Araujo, who disappeared near Chambery in the French Alps in August 2017 sparking a six-month police search that dominated the national headlines for weeks. During that time Lelandais, who was a military dog trainer in the army, denied having anything to do with the missing girl until forensic experts found a trace of blood in the boot of his car. He eventually confessed to killing Maelys but said it had been a “terrible mistake”. He has since been tried and sentenced to 20 years for beating to death another serviceman and is also on trial for the sexual assault of two girls aged five and six, shortly before Maelys was killed. Lelandais took the stand on the third day of the hearing, where he said that after being discharged from the army following an eye injury he had worked in a series of short-term jobs and became addicted to pornography. He was not on the original guest list at the wedding in 2017 but had spoken to the groom the day before and was given a last-minute invite. He showed up around midnight for dessert and to supply cocaine to two guests who had asked him to bring the drugs. Maelys got into his vehicle, an Audi A3, after he invited her to see his dogs. He then drove off. Video cameras spotted his car at 2.47am with what appeared to be a small passenger. Shortly afterwards Lelandais returned to the wedding, but left before the police arrived around 4.15am. Around 3am, when Maelys’s mother Jennifer alerted wedding guests to the fact that her daughter was missing, a huge search was launched. Lelandais apologised tearfully to the De Araujo family when the trial opened on Monday. They sat in the front row holding photographs and paintings of the girl. “I want to offer my apologies. I did indeed cause her death, but I didn’t want to. I will explain during the trial,” he said. Lelandais had told investigators that she had started crying in the car and he punched her several times in the face but did not mean to kill her. During questioning he also mentioned another man, Arthur Noyer, a soldier who had disappeared earlier in the year from a gay nightclub. Detectives examined the case and after Noyer’s skull was found, Lelandais admitted he had accidentally killed him after getting into a fight. The trial is expected to last three weeks with a verdict on 18 February.