Jailed: Bogus police officers kidnapped victim on Shropshire border in car with blue flashing lights

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 yesterday.

He had been found guilty by a Caernarfon Crown Court jury of the kidnap, false imprisonment and blackmail of the man who lives in the Four Crosses/Llanymynech area, near Oswestry.

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.

Imposing an 18-month 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."

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.

It happened when he pulled up on his driveway in a van.

Prosecutor John Philpotts had told the jury they might think the events of September 2 "sound rather like the plot of a television police drama." But the case involved "real people and real fear."

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 in a warehouse at Birkenhead.

Mr Philpotts said the victim was taken to a caravan park on the outskirts of Chester during a four-hour ordeal.

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 the judge said 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."