A former public schoolboy who claims he was kidnap

A former public schoolboy who claims he was kidnapped and held to ransom today (THURS) denied inventing the incident to cover up his involvement in a massive burglary plot.

Merion Martin, 21, has alleged that he was snatched by a gang and threatened with death if his family didn’t hand over almost pnds stlg 30,000.

But he was today accused of making up the 18-hour ‘ordeal’ to stop the police probing two heists he helped set up.

The computer firm Mr Martin worked for suffered two burglaries just weeks before the alleged kidnap.

In the first, raiders stole more than pnds stlg 161,000 worth of hi-tech gear from a warehouse in Hanwell, west London.

Five days later, four masked intruders handcuffed a security guard at the store and beat him up whilst demanding a special piece of equipment – called a C30.

They fled empty-handed.

Mr Martin, who was stock controller at Morse Computers when the two burglaries took place, was arrested last Friday and questioned by police about the incidents.

But he today denied a suggestion that he was ‘party’ to the raids, and that the second took place because he had been asked by villains to supply the C30.

And he refuted claims that he invented the kidnap and blackmail plot to avoid police involvement after a gang was robbed of pnds stlg 28,000 during a dodgy deal.

Mr Martin, of Wimbledon, south-west London, also denied being a drug dealer supplying cannabis to pals.

Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court in central London has heard how Mr Martin claims he was snatched and terrorised after a stolen computers deal went wrong in March this year.

He said he was contacted by a shady friend of his – called Harry Brown – who wanted to sell a cache of blackmarket laptops.

After various phone calls to contacts, Mr Martin spoke to three men from south Wales who agreed to pay pnds stlg 28,000 for the goods.

But when one of them – 30-year-old Jason Germain – turned up to do the deal, Brown’s henchmen robbed him at gunpoint.

Mr Martin said Germain and another man, Eugene Vatsaloo, demanded their money back – and then kidnapped him after driving to Cardiff in his car.

The youngster said that Germain, Vatsaloo, 31, and their pal Chris Whitcomb, 30, threatened to shoot and stab him, set him on fire, and then bury him in a shallow grave if the money was not returned.

He claims he eventually told them his dad John was a wealthy architect and would replace the money if they spared his life.

The three men then allegedly made phone calls to John Martin demanding the cash, before Germain and Whitcomb drove their hostage to Kent to collect it.

But as they waited in a hotel room in Tenterden for the ransom payment, armed police swooped and arrested them.

Mr Martin has told the jury he was ‘petrified’ in the car and said anything he could to save his life.

But under cross-examination today, he denied that he suggested staging the kidnap to extort the missing money from his own dad.

Germain’s defence barrister Simon Molyneux alleged that Mr Martin was ‘party’ to both burglaries at Morse Computers, and that when Germain was robbed he was terrified of the police asking questions.

The jury heard he was only one of three people who held keys to the Hanwell depot.

But he said it was ‘not true’ that he knew the burglaries were going to happen and was trying to line up buyers in advance.

Asked by Mr Molyneux if he was concerned that if the police became involved in the robbery of Germain they would probe him about the computer burglaries, Mr Martin replied: ‘I wasn’t worried at all.

‘I had nothing to do them.

I have not been part of any conspiracy, to my knowledge.

‘

Asked if he agreed to go to Wales to save the police being called in, Mr Martin replied: ‘That is not true.

‘I had no part in those burglaries or Germain being robbed.

All I did was to help them get their money back, which ended up with me being kidnapped and threatened.

‘I had to bring my family into it to save my life.

I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.

‘

Mr Martin then denied suggestions from Mr Molyneux that his story was ‘rubbish’ and that he was ‘begging’ the three men not to go to the police.

Mr Molyneux asked: ‘You said to them ”My dad has got money, we will get it from him”.

‘

Mr Martin replied: ‘I do remember saying that, but the fact I had a knife to my throat was slightly worrying at the time.

The police had nothing to do with it.

‘

Mr Molyneux: ‘You then suggested, didn’t you, that your dad would pay if he thought you were in trouble?’

Mr Martin: ‘I was in trouble.

‘

Mr Molyneux:’ It was then agreed you would drive back with Germain and Whitcomb to Kent, and then you would use this story of being kidnapped as a way of getting the money out of your father?’

Mr Martin: ‘That is not true.

I don’t know where you get this from.

‘

Mr Molyneux also suggested that Mr Martin had invented the gun and knife to ‘colour’ the story, and added: ‘Far from being kidnapped, this was your way of avoiding any chance of the police getting involved.

‘

The jury had earlier been told that during a search of Mr Martin’s flat in Gresham Way, Wimbledon, police had found quantities of cannabis and cocaine, as well as a home-made pipe for smoking the drugs.

But he denied being a drug dealer, saying he had merely put a friend of his in touch with a supplier after the man said he wanted to buy some cannabis.

Germain, of Angeline Street, Butetown, Cardiff, Whitcomb, from Seven Road, Canton, Cardiff, and Vatsaloo, of Pretoria Road, Tonyrefail, Mid-Glamorgan, all deny conspiracy to kidnap and falsely imprison Mr Martin between March 22 and 26 this year.

Germain and Whitcomb admit conspiracy to blackmail John Martin but Vatsaloo denies this charge.

The trial continues.

ends