Vicious robber is jailed after rapper killed
AROBBER faced justice alone because his suspected partner-in-crime – aspiring rapper Dale Gordon – was murdered before the case got to court.
Jordan Talbot, from Reddish, was due to go on trial for robbery alongside Gordon, who was 20 when he died.
But in November last year Talbot’s co-accused was beaten to death by two men in Gorton.
Talbot, 21, of Bower Street, has now been jailed for eight years.
He got seven years for the robbery, which was alleged to have involved Gordon, and a consecutive one-year sentence for breaching a restraining order by bombarding his ex-partner with abusive texts and calls.
He pleaded guilty to both offences last month.
The 22-year-old victim of the robbery was subjected to a terrifying ordeal before just £25 was stolen from him in a crime which had the hallmarks of a bungled gangland extortion bid. At midnight on October 16, 2013, a thug wearing a balaclava smashed his way into the man’s car with a crowbar and a screwdriver after he parked up for a cigarette on Pink Bank Lane, Longsight. The attacker then held a screwdriver to the man’s neck and demanding his cash and phone.
Up to five other men were involved in the incident, in which the victim was repeatedly punched, jabbed with the screwdriver, dragged from the car and threatened with kidnap.
They also tried to pull off the fascia in the car.
Craig MacGregor, prosecuting, said: “It’s often the case that drugs are hidden within the fascias of cars. In this case they clearly have got the wrong man – this looked like a ‘taxing’ but (the victim) had no drugs on him.”
Less than an hour later police in Glossop noticed a BMW travelling in convoy with a Volvo. The Volvo sped off and an 85mph police chase ensued, ending on a country lane when the car’s tyres burst. Gordon was in that vehicle with Talbot.
Talbot’s jacket, which had the victim’s blood on it, was among a number of items found.
Sentencing, Judge Robert Atherton said of the robbery: “It was a terrify- ing experience – the victim didn’t know how it was going to end.”
The court heard that when he was just 10, Talbot held a 12-year-old boy prisoner and beat him with an iron bar before stealing £1 and a snack.
Police offered a £25,000 reward for information about Gordon’s killers earlier this year.