Four jailed after gang threats to cut off captive man’s fingers

Robert Lodge feared he would never see his family again as he was forced into a car, hooded and kept in a cellar with bars on the windows, Leeds Crown Court was told.

Brothers Cainan and Elijah Jerome, Ian Morris and Jamie Wadsworth were locked up for more than 24 years in total yesterday for their part in the incident, as well as firearms and drugs possession offences.

Sentencing them, Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: “It was a horrendous exercise over a prolonged period of time involving the use of a weapon and a number of people. The psychological harm must have been immense.”

The dispute arose after Mr Lodge was stopped by police when driving a car which belonged to Cainan Jerome, 20, of Littlewood Croft, Huddersfield.

Mr Lodge did not hold a driving licence and the vehicle was seized by officers.

Cainan Jerome felt entitled to £600 in compensation and sent text messages to Mr Lodge, demanding the money.

The court heard that, at about 9.15pm on August 2 last year, Cainan Jerome told Mr Lodge’s sister Katie that he would cut off her brother’s fingers if the money was not paid.

Fifteen minutes later, he and Jamie Wadsworth, 18, also of Littlewood Croft, walked uninvited into Ms Lodge’s Liversedge home.

Cainan Jerome lifted up his jacket to show the handle of a silver gun in his tracksuit bottoms.

After threatening to damage Ms Lodge’s television and telling her the debt was hers, Cainan Jerome summoned an associate of “significant stature”, Ian Morris, 41, who arrived holding a Taser.

The court heard that Morris, of Bradley Court, Huddersfield, was only in the property for three to five minutes but “played the hard man”, pulling the trigger to cause electricity to pass between the weapon’s two prongs and asking: “Who’s getting this, then?”

Cainan Jerome found Mr Lodge while out driving and ordered him into the car. He told Mr Lodge he was “going to learn the hard way”.

They then travelled to a flat complex in Wellington Street, Huddersfield, where Elijah Jerome, 21, lived.

A hood was pulled over Mr Lodge’s head and he was held there for four hours, during which a knife was held against his hand.

Calls were made to Mr Lodge’s family, and he cried down the phone at them as Cainan Jerome increased his demand to £1,000, the court heard.

At 2.15am, Cainan Jerome and Wadsworth took Mr Lodge by taxi to a property in Almondbury, Huddersfield, and kept him in a cellar with bars on the window.

Jerome contacted Ms Lodge again and warned her that, if her brother’s debt was not paid, “whatever happens, happens”.

Jerome later visited Ms Lodge and made a further demand for money. She agreed to meet him at a chip shop, where armed police swooped and rescued Mr Lodge.

Officers searched the homes of the four men and found three guns, including the pistol Cainan Jerome had been carrying, as well as drugs in Morris’s car.

Cainan and Elijah Jerome, who both admitted at a previous hearing false imprisonment and possessing a firearm, were sentenced to eight years and six and a half years respectively.

The court heard that Morris had 22 previous convictions. He was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to possessing a firearm and two counts of possessing drugs with intent to supply.

Wadsworth was detained for five years after admitting possessing a firearm, false imprisonment and cultivating cannabis.