A 10-man kidnap gang who cut off a man's finger to extort a £20,000 ransom have been sentenced to life imprisonment at Warwick Crown Court. The victim, a 26-year-old from Coventry, was abducted at gunpoint in Milverton Road, Woodend, in September and taken to a lock-up garage.
He was bound, gagged, and beaten with a metal bar, then left in a van without food or water. When the gang felt his family had not responded quickly enough to the ransom demand, they severed his little finger and left it under a brick on a garden wall. After the family paid the ransom, the victim was thrown out of the back of a van in McDonnell Drive, Coventry.
Police recovered the ransom money during a raid on a house in Dovedale Avenue, Longford. Five of the defendants received life sentences for charges including kidnapping, false imprisonment, blackmail, and grievous bodily harm. Ralph McLeod, 37, of Belmont Road, Coventry, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of nine years; Lewis Poyser, 24, also of Belmont Road, to life with a minimum of 13 years and six months; and Yusuf Akbar, 33, of Wynn Street, Edgbaston, to 12 years.
Kofi Poyser, 23, of Dovedale Avenue, Coventry, was sentenced to life with a minimum of 13 years; Kadeem Poyser, 31, of Browning Road, Coventry, to 13 years; Ricardo Grant, 24, of Watcombe Road, Henley Green, to 15 years; Lamar Grant, 26, of HMP Leicester, to life with a minimum of 13 years; Jermaine Campbell, 24, of Whyatt House, Coventry, to 15 years; Anthony McLeod, 34, of Sycamore Road, Coventry, to life with a minimum of 13 years; and Ismaeel Akbar, 32, of Kingsbury Road, Tipton, to 14 years and six months.
Detective Chief Inspector Simon Wallis said: 'The family were understandably distraught at the thought of what else could happen to their loved one.' Four of the defendants were also sentenced for their part in an assault on a man outside a Coventry nightclub in June.
