Inside the container where hostage was held
IMAGES showing the inside of a squalid shipping container where a man was held hostage for five days in a kidnap orchestrated by a Scots businessman have been revealed by police.
Paul Gogan, from Essex, was held in the pitch dark, with no sanitation, surrounded by horse faeces and only dirty mattresses to lie on inside the container in a rural area of Northern Ireland after a business deal went wrong.
The cattle dealer was given only limited food and water before being released.
Last week, Robert Vevers, 59, of Crawick, Dumfriesshire, was sentenced to a two-and-a-half year suspended prison sentence at Dungannon Crown Court after he pled guilty to luring his victim to a spot near Omagh. He organised for Mr Gogan to be tied up, hooded and bundled into a van by an armed gang.
Gang members Patrick Noel McCaul, 45 and Matthew McClean, 28, received suspended two-year sentences for conspiracy to blackmail.
Robert McClean, 23, received 18 months suspended and Martin Arkinson, 22, a year’s suspended sentence for assisting offenders.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland released the pictures as it emerged the Crown is considering an appeal against the sentences handed down
Mr Gogan, 42, who is originally from County Meath in the Irish Republic, was allegedly threatened with a shotgun and told he would be killed or have his fingers cut off during his fiveday ordeal inside the disused refrigerated container in a remote field in Northern Ireland.
Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Murray said the victim, who was held over a disputed debt, endured a “terrifying ordeal”.
“He didn’t know whether he was going to live, he didn’t know whether he was going to die – he didn’t know if he did live, was he going to come out hurt, permanently injured, with fingers cut off,” he said.
Mr Gogan was finally released across the Irish border after a reduced ransom of €100,000 (£87,000) – cut from £400,000 – was handed over by his family – money that has never been recovered.
“Kidnapping is a very, very traumatic crime,” said Mr Murray. A call made by the kidnappers to Mr Gogan’s father demanding the ransom and threatening to cut off his fingers proved their undoing.
Detectives ultimately were able to trace the call back to the gang members.
DNA was found on balaclavas and on cable ties linking them to the gang.