The 33-year-old man was handcuffed, driven off and blindfolded and was threatened with being shot in a warehouse
A 33-year-old man living in the Oswestry-Welshpool area of mid Wales had been handcuffed, driven off and blindfolded in a black Audi which had been taken a few months earlier from outside a house at Hawarden, near Chester.
Prosecutor John Philpotts had told the jury at Caernfaron Crown Court that they might think the events of September 2 “sound rather like the plot of a television police drama.”
But he said the case involved “real people and real fear.”
Threat of abuse
The court heard how the victim had been warned that his kidnappers wanted cash or he would be killed with a heroin injection.
He had also been threatened with abuse by a sex toy and threatened with being shot in a warehouse at Birkenhead.
Mr Philpotts said he was taken to a caravan park on the outskirts of Chester during a four-hour ordeal.
Car valet Nathan Parry, 37, of Jack’s Wood, Ellesmere Port, described by the judge as the lead member of the kidnap gang and the “brains” behind the offence, was jailed for 12 years.
He had been found guilty by a jury of the kidnap, false imprisonment and blackmail.
Andrew Ballantyne, 36, of a caravan park at Rough Hill, Chester, and David Staff, 34, of Leaside Road, Chester, were said to have been “willing lieutenants”. They were both locked up for seven-and-a-half years after admitting the offences.
Almost £20,000 ransom
Carl Nicholas, 33, of Coed Aben, Wrexham, was jailed for 18 months after pleading guilty to witness intimidation by warning the victim he and his family would be “taken out.”
Natalie Goode, 33, of Willow Road, Lache, Chester, was cleared of kidnapping and false imprisonment but convicted of blackmail. She was accused of collecting a ransom of at least £11,000, possibly almost £20,000, from the man’s mother.
Imposing an 18 months suspended prison term with 250 hours unpaid work, Judge Philip Harris-Jenkins told her: “You fall in a wholly different category. Your role was minor. You were following orders.”
Defence barrister Gareth Roberts, for Parry, said the victim was perhaps someone “who sailed close to the wind.”
But Judge Harris-Jenkins said the man had no convictions. The prosecution said drugs found attached to his vehicle had been “planted” and that it perhaps “emphasises the level of sophistication and planning” that went into what happened, to discredit the victim.
He told the kidnappers: “He thought he was going to die at your hands.”
see-http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/gang-jailed-after-posing-policemen-11279571
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