Kidnap gang cut off victim's finger and sent it to his family in £60,000 ransom demand

Gruesome: The blood-stained van in which the victim was tortured.

     A gang who grabbed a man off the street at gunpoint and cut off his finger as part of a brutal ransom demand has been found guilty of kidnapping.The three men were part of a 10-strong mob that pulled the victim off the street and demanded £60,000 from his frantic family to free him.Seven gang members had already admitted their involvement when they appeared at Lamington Justice Centre last month, but Ralph McLeod, Lewis Poyser and Yusuf Akbar all denied the charges.

Today the three men were found guilty of blackmail, unlawful imprisonment and wounding after a four-week trial.

     The Coventry Telegraph told how all 10 defendants have been remanded into custody and will appear back at court for sentencing on January 23.The 26-year-old victim was bundled into the back of a van at gunpoint by three men wearing balaclavas in Milverton Road, Wood End, Coventry, on September 30 last year, as he was talking to friends.He was beaten and kicked and taken to a lock-up garage where he was left bound and gagged with a bag over his head in a van, without food or water, throughout his ordeal.The man’s family was contacted and a ransom of £60,000 was demanded, but when they didn’t respond quickly enough, the gang cut off the man’s little finger and left it under a brick on a garden wall for his family to find.

    Speaking after the court case, Det Chf Insp Simon Wallis, of West Midlands Police, said: “The family was understandably distraught at the thought of what else could happen to their loved one and immediately paid a ransom of £20,000.“The victim was thrown out of the back of the van later that night on McDonnell Drive, after being kept in a garage where he had been severely kicked and beaten with a metal bar throughout his 36-hour ordeal.”The man was taken to hospital for treatment and two hours later armed police swooped on a house in Long ford where several men were arrested for the kidnap. The cash, all except for a few pounds, was recovered from the address.

    Four of the defendants, Anthony McLeod, Kofi Poyser, Lewis Poyser and Lemar Grant will also be sentenced for their part in a brutal assault on a man outside a Coventry nightclub on June 30, which was captured on CCTV.In the early hours of that morning, after leaving Clique nightclub in Silver Street, the group beat a 26-year-old man unconscious, stamping and kicking his head into a brick wall.The four pleaded guilty to the assault earlier this year and sentencing was deferred so that the details of the attack could be used as bad character in the kidnap trial.

     Kofi Poyser, 23, of Dove dale Avenue, Long ford, Kadeem Poyser, 31, of Browning Road, Wyken, Ricardo Grant, 24, of Watcombe Road, Henley Green, and Lamar Grant, 26, and Jermaine Campbell, 24, both of Broad Park Road, Henley Green, pleaded guilty to kidnap, possession of a firearm whilst committing a schedule one offence, unlawful imprisonment, blackmail and Section 18 wounding.Anthony McLeod, 34, of Sycamore Road, Aldermans Green, and Ismaeel Akbar, 32, of Kingsbury Road, Tipton, pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment, blackmail and Section 18 wounding.Ralph McLeod, 37, and Lewis Poyser, 24, both of Belmont Road, Paradise, and Yusuf Akbar, 33, of Wynn Street, Birmingham, were found guilty of unlawful imprisonment, blackmail and Section 18 wounding. Via.mirror uk