Conspiracy to kidnap

During a drunken conversation a man offered £20,000 to a friend to kidnap his former girlfriend after she dumped him.

Aaron Rawson, 21, of Beacon Hill Road, Newark, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap at an earlier hearing. He was supposed to go to the woman's home, hold the knife to her throat and handcuff her to the bed while she called Wakefield and told him that she had forgiven him.

He was then to bundle her into the boot of a Peugeot 206 and take her to the woods and threaten to rape her. James Wakefield would turn up and stop him.

Rawson initially believed Wakefield was joking but realised he was not when he bought items for the kidnap in Doncaster the next day.

These included night vision goggles and a knife block from Argos, a Dalek voice changer from Woolworths - so she would not recognise Rawson's voice - handcuffs, an air pistol, a balaclava and a boiler suit.

Rawson said he also heard Wakefield on the phone to Army and Navy surplus stores asking for a knife with a six-inch blade.

James Hett, prosecuting, said: "Any reservations that Mr Wakefield was being less than serious were soon dispelled by those telephone calls and then those purchases."

After a bungled attempt Rawson was spooked by a passing car but was encouraged to try again and even recruited a third person for the operation.

Wakefield, of no fixed abode, came up with the plot after his partner of 18 months, with whom he lived at her home in Newark for six months, ended their relationship in December.

Wakefield denied conspiracy to kidnap but was found guilty by a jury at Nottingham Crown Court.

He claimed he had bought the knives for his mother and the night vision goggles for his seven-year-old daughter.

Martin Elwick, defending Wakefield, said Rawson was "acting on a frolic of his own" and called the plot "unworkable, barmy and bizarre".

Wakefield will be sentenced on Friday 25th July 2008.