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Men are jailed for kidnapping over alleged drug debt
Jun 4 2009 by Antonia Merola, Flintshire Chronicle
Victim bundled into car and driven away
TWO Deeside men have each been jailed for four-and-a-half years after they kidnapped a man over an alleged debt.
The victim was taken from a newsagent’s shop, bundled into a car, and taken to a remote spot where he was roughed up and assaulted.
But the man who was terrorised over what the prosecution claimed was a drugs debt of between £200-300 owed to Keith Kendrick was later taken home by them.
At Mold Crown Court on Friday, the court heard 25-year-old Kendrick, of Central Drive, Shotton, was said to have enlisted Andrew Thomas Mitchell, of Queen’s Avenue, Connah’s Quay, to drive the victim away.
They both then assaulted him and his spectacles were left at the scene in the countryside near Meadow View, where police later found them, explained prosecuting barrister Siôn ap Mihangel.
Both were earlier due to go on trial on charges of kidnap, assault and blackmail but they admitted kidnap and assault when the blackmail charge was dropped.
Mitchell, 32, denied he had threatened the victim with a chain saw or that he had threatened to burn his house down.
The judge, Mr Recorder John Jenkins QC, said he accepted the man had been driven only a short distance and the incident had been short.
But the victim had been terrorised and feared for his safety.
“It was completely lawless criminal behaviour that cannot be tolerated in a civilised society,” the judge said.
The court heard Nicholas Lanceley was at G and R Newsagents in Connah’s Quay High Street on October 13 last year when he saw a silver Renault pull up outside. As he left the shop he saw Kendrick, who shouted that he owed him money.
The shop CCTV showed Mitchell getting him into a headlock, and he was pulled outside and bundled into the car.
Mitchell drove, Kendrick sat alongside him in the back. Both assaulted him and he was also threatened.
John Gruffydd, for Mitchell, said his client was in the wrong place at the wrong time and acted out of misplaced loyalty to Kendrick.
Simon Killeen, for Kendrick, said it was unplanned, short-lived and while threatening and frightening, the complainant did know the defendants.
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