‘They asked for £250,000 then worked down to £50k’
CARE HOME WORKER TORTURED BY GANG WHO WRONGLY THOUGHT HE HAD MONEY
A MAN was kidnapped, tortured and badly beaten before being dumped on a street.
The man, said to have been targeted because his attackers believed he would have money, was found with cable ties around his neck, wrists and legs.
Blake Evers, 24, who was also involved in kidnapping a father from his home in Heaton Moor, Stockport, about a month earlier, has been jailed after admitting causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Evers, who had no previous convictions has been locked up for 19 years after what a judge described as ‘a terrifying baptism into criminal activity.’
The man had been out for a meal in the city centre with his partner, Manchester Crown Court heard, and was set upon when he returned home to Fallowfield.
“It seems some years ago there was some publicity to the effect that (the victim), whose address was revealed in the press, was a man who may have been thought to be cash rich. In fact he wasn’t,” Judge Martin Rudland said.
In reality at the time he was working in a care home and earned a ‘modest’ income, the court was told.
During his ordeal he was attacked by several masked men, and was hit with a metal bar, bats and pistol whipped.
Then he was dragged into a VW
Tiguan, where he was told he would be killed unless he handed over money. After a few minutes the car stopped and he was pulled out, pouring with blood.
He struggled to try to get away, but was then bundled into a VW Golf on Maine Road in Moss Side.
Dramatic CCTV footage of this moment was shown in court.
In the Golf, the men took off his coat and shoes before tying him up by his arms and feet using cable ties and putting a bag over his head.
If he struggled, he was punched and choked. “Realising the futility of further resistance, he submitted in terrified resignation,” prosecutor Alaric Bassano said.
After about 20 minutes the car stopped and the man was taken into the upstairs room of a property. Cable ties were put around his neck, wrists and feet, and the men demanded money.
“They asked for £250,000, then they worked their way down to £50,000,” the victim told police. “They asked me where I hide my money. They said you’ve worked all your life and we’ve got you now so to pay.”
He was told he would be killed if payment wasn’t made. When he said he had no money he was subjected to ‘sustained and extreme violence.’
A gun was pointed at him, he was punched to the face, his feet and shins were hit with metal bars or a hammer, and his toes were cut with a ‘sharp implement.’
His trousers and underwear were pulled down, and he was whipped with a belt on the back of his legs. He was attacked every few minutes, and water or aftershave was thrown at him to rouse him. After about an hour-and-a-half he was dragged into a car and dumped on a street in Salford, with his hands and feet still bound, his trousers still down, and was found by a passerby. Before they left, his kidnappers knocked on the door of a nearby house, ‘perhaps realising how badly injured he was.’
Police were called and it was later discovered that the man had suffered ‘grave’ injuries, including a bleed on the brain, multiple fractures to his nose, a broken toe and cuts to his feet and shins.
In the subsequent investigation following the incident on December 18, 2018, it was discovered the Golf had a tracking device on it.
Police were able to link Evers to the crime after finding his fingerprints on the number plate on the VW Tiguan, as well as through phone evidence.
They learned Evers had been living in a house on Polporro Close in Royton, Oldham, where they recovered a .38 Smith and Wesson gun in full working order, with six bullets.
The victim’s blood was found on the gun.
Evers, of Thornley Lane South, Stockport, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm and possession of a prohibited firearm.
That included seven-and-a-half years for the GBH offence and five years for possession of the firearm, as well as time for his involvement in the previous kidnapping in Stockport. Others involved in the Fallowfield incident have not been brought before the courts.
Evers was sentenced at the same hearing in which his co-defendents were also jailed for the incident in Stockport a month earlier, where a ransom of £34,000 was paid.