Jail for kidnap gang leader

The ringleader of a gang that kidnapped a Four Crosses businessman has been jailed for 12 years.
The victim had been kidnapped by three bogus police officers in a car with blue flashing lights after his movements were tracked for the previous few months, a court heard.

Car valet Nathan Parry, 37, of Jack’s Wood, Ellesmere Port, described by the judge as the lead member of the kidnap gang and “brains” behind the offence, was jailed for 12 years.

He had been found guilty by a Caernarfon Crown Court jury of the kidnap, false imprisonment and blackmail of the man.

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” and were both locked up for seven-and-a-half years after admitting the offences.

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 and given an 18 month suspended prison sentence with 250 hours unpaid work.

The 33-year-old victim 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.

The victim had, the court heard, been warned that his kidnappers wanted cash or he would be killed with a heroin injection. He had also been threatened with abuse and threatened with being shot.