FERGUS:16 YEARS FOR FOR KIDNAPPERS WHO TORTURED LONDON BUS DRIVER

Two ‘vicious’ kidnappers who abducted a London bus driver and tortured him in a case of mistaken identity have been jailed for a total of 16 years.

The man was bundled into a van, beaten and burnt with a cigarette lighter while his captors made death threats and demanded a £10,000 ransom.

The attackers dialled the last number their hostage had called, saying he would be stabbed unless the money was dropped off at Honor Oak Railway Station in southeast London.

The victim, from Forest Hill. eventually fought off the kidnappers, fleeing to a nearby pub where doormen called the police, Inner London Crown Court heard.

Following the incident, the victim helped police produce an ‘e-fit’ image of one of the kidnappers, Michael Fergus, 25, and later picked him out in an identity parade.

Officers also used mobile phone records to place the men at the scene of the crime.

Fergus was jailed for six years while his cousin Taariq Fagan, 20, received 10 years for his role in the abduction and an unrelated robbery.

Sentencing the pair Judge Lindsay Burn said: ‘Your victim was subject to threats and violence including being burned by items such as cigarettes.

‘It must have been a terrifying experience, as I’ve no doubt it was designed to be.

‘In the course of the time he was in the van, calls were made on his mobile telephone to a friend of his demanding sums of money for him to be released.

‘The series of events only came to an end when the van stopped in a park and the victim made good his opportunity to force his release.’

James Dawes, prosecuting, told how the bus driver was driven home after seeing his girlfriend and was about to get out of his grey VW Golf when Fergus approached, wearing a hat and hood.

Fergus grabbed his gold chain, but when the victim, who cannot be identified, fought back he was attacked by other gang members.

They hit him on the head, pressed a gun to his back and ordered him to ‘walk’.

A friend, who had pulled up in another car nearby, managed to escape and call police, but the victim was quickly bundled into a blue Suzuki Rascal van.

Mr Dawes said the bus driver had been targeted in a case of mistaken identity over a drug debt – but his captors ignored his protestations of innocence.

He said: ‘During the course of his imprisonment he was tortured and threatened with death.

‘As he was being driven, he was punched and kicked by the people in the van and had cigarettes extinguished on him.

‘They used a lighter on his ears.’

Fagan was also found guilty of robbing supermarket delivery driver Derek Baskett two months later on November 26.

Mr Baskett was ambushed as he unloaded goods at a branch of Sainsbury’s at around 7am, with Fagan making off with cartons of cigarettes.

Fagan, of Dunstans Road, East Dulwich, southeast London, was found guilty after a trial of kidnap, false imprisonment and blackmail over the abduction and separately of robbing the delivery driver.

Fergus, of White City Close, White City, west London, was convicted of kidnapping the bus driver but cleared of false imprisonment and blackmail.

Alex Dunn, defending Fagan, said he was a ‘studious young man’ with nine GCSEs who had previously volunteered as a mentor for primary school children.

He said: ‘He was intending to do a further course in plumbing and take up employment in that.’
ends