Gang Who Kidnapped Man Then Cut Off His Little Finger When His Family Could Not Pay £60,000 Ransom Bagged 152 Years Jail

A gang of kidnappers who held a man hostage and cut off his little finger when his family could not pay the £60,000 ransom were jailed today for a total of 152 years. ictim Damien Lowe was abducted on a street in Coventry at gunpoint and bundled into a van where a group of ten masked men kept him without food or water for 31 hours.

When his family initially failed to pay the money his kidnappers demanded, the gang chopped off his finger and left it under a brick on a garden wall for his panicked relatives to find.


'The van was going all over the place I didn't have a chance to try and think where I was. 'When they took my phone and got me to find my brother's number I didn't know what they were going to do.

'I thought I was going to die there and then. When they told me I had to ask for £60,000 ransom I was almost relieved.


Kidnappers: (L-R) Antony McLeod, 34, sentenced to 15 years and Ralph McLeod, 37, sentenced to 18 years


Gang members: (L-R) Kadeem Poyser, 26, sentenced to 13 years and Kofi Poyser, 23, sentenced to 16 years

'But I knew there was no way my family would be able to pay and I thought I'd never see them again.

'My kidnappers kept disappearing and then coming back, always to beat me, harder and harder.

When they came in and covered my face I knew something bad was going to happen.

'That was when they cut my finger off. The pain was unbelievable and I was just crying out and then they just beat me again.

Mr Lowe was kidnapped from a street near his home on the afternoon of September 30 2014.


Abductors: (L-R) Lamar Grant, 26 , sentenced to 16 years, Ricardo Grant, 24, sentenced to 15 years and Jermaine Campbell, 24, sentenced to 15 years


Jailed: Yusuf Akbar, 33, sentenced to 12 years, Ismaeel Akbar, 32, sentenced to 14 and a half years, and Lewis Poyser, 24, sentenced to 18 years

His kidnappers kept him bound and gagged in the van, which was parked in a lock-up garage, and beat him with a metal bar before severing his finger.

According to the Birmingham Mail, the gang had threatened to cut off another digit for every hour they didn't receive payment.

Mr Lowe's family scraped together £20,000 to pay the kidnappers, and the 26-year-old was later thrown out of the vehicle on a a suburban street, before being found and rushed to hospital.

Working with intelligence gathered from West Midlands Police’s Serious Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), officers then stormed a house where the kidnappers were staying, and recovered the £20,000.



DCI Simon Wallis, from the force's Criminal Investigation Department, said: 'The family were 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, after being kept in a garage where he had been severely kicked and beaten with a metal bar throughout his 31-hour ordeal.'

Describing his eventual release, Mr Lowe added: 'They disappeared and I thought they were just going to leave me to die.

THE KIDNAPPERS' PUNISHMENTS
1. Ishmaeel Akbar, 32 - sentenced to 14 years six months

2. Yusuf Akhbar, 33 - sentenced to 12 years.

3. Ralph McLeod, 37 - sentenced to 18 years.

4. Lewis Poyser, 24 - sentenced to 18 years, (plus 9 years consecutively for assault in another case)

5. Kofi Poyser, 23 - sentenced to 16 years, (plus 10 years for assault in another case)

6. Kadeem Poyser, 26 - sentenced to 13 years.

7. Jermaine Campbell, 24 - sentenced to 15 years.

8. Lemar Grant, 26 - sentenced to 16 years, (plus 10 years for assault in another case),

9. Ricardo Grant, 24 - sentenced to 15 years.

10. Anthony McLeod, 34 - sentenced to 15 years, (plus 11 years for assault in another case)

'When I finally got to hospital, the doctors told me that I probably wouldn't have survived if I'd got to them just an hour later because of the amount of blood I'd lost and how dehydrated I was.

'It was like being in a violent film - I'm still scared to go out by myself. You wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.

'These people deserve to go to jail. I'm just pleased to see justice finally done.'

Source: Dailymail