Three men were cleared today of holding a business
Three men were cleared today of holding a businessman captive to take over his nightclub empire.
Graeme Hammond, 45, claimed he was punched, kicked and had his throat slashed with a knife by a gang who snatched him from his office.
He told Inner London Crown Court he was then held captive in his home as the gang forced him to withdraw cash from his bank accounts.
But the three men he accused of holding him hostage were acquitted by a jury in just 45 minutes on charges of false imprisonment and blackmail.
Andrew Baker, 37, the boss of a security firm, David Davenport, 35, and Delaney Smart, 30, were each accused of attacking Hammond.
But they insisted the trio had been protecting Mr Hammond at his home at Prescot Place, Clapham from underworld enemies.
Mr Hammond told the court that during his brutal ordeal the men had demanded pnds stlg 150,000 – or hand over his nightclubs.
The venues were the Buddha Lounge in Manchester, the Buddha Lounge in Romford, and the Buddha Bar and the Opium Lounge in Ipswich.
Mr Hammond, a printer, had told how he bought the three clubs for a nominal two pounds in exchange for a printing debt.
The clubs owed pnds stlg 1.
6 million, the court heard.
Mr Hammond first became involved with Baker after he had been threatened by a member of the Adams Family crime gang based in Islington, north London.
Mr Hammond claimed Danny Adams – said to be involved in the running of the Venus lap dancing club on Farringdon Road, north London – threatened to cut out his heart.
He had turned to Baker to protect him in January last year.
Mr Hammond claimed Baker later turned up at his converted warehouse home in Clapham with nine other men.
He said he was then repeatedly beaten by a man wearing leather gloves with metal knuckles who is not before the court.
He had his three cars taken from him including a pnds stlg 20,000 Porsche and a pnds stlg 17,000 Grand Cherokee off-road vehicl while he was held hostage in his home.
Mr Hammond said he was then taken to the For Your Eyes Only lapdancing club in Ealing where he was beaten up some more, before being held in his home overnight by Baker, Davenport and Smart.
But Baker told the court that he had been paid pnds stlg 4,000 to protect Hammond from ‘Black garage music promoters’.
He said during the weekend Mr Hammond changed his story and claimed he had been beaten up by an ‘organised crime family’.
But Baker said: ‘Obviously if it was true that a member of an organised crime family had beaten him up there would not be enough money in the world to protect him.
‘
Davenport said that Mr Hammond was fascinated by organised crime and had books about the Kray twins on his shelves – with the phone numbers of all the gangsters in London on his phone.
Davenport said: ‘He showed me his phone and said ”This is my A to Z of crime.
Check the numbers.
‘He had almost everybody’s number who was involved in crime,’ Davenport said.
Davenport said that he had called in his friend Smart because he wanted some company while guarding Mr Hammond.
After the hearing all three men were jubilant.
Davenport presented a T-shirt to the detective that brought the case, Denis Phelan, that said: ‘No hard Phelans, Denis’.
Speaking after the case, Baker said: ‘Justice has been served, even though the judge directed in his summing up for the jury to find us guilty.
‘It was the most biased summing up that counsel has ever seen, and we are taking legal advice about putting in a complaint against the judge.
‘
Smart, of (7) Holmesdale Road, Kilburn; Baker, of The Timbers, Old Barnstaple Road, Bideford, Devon, and Davenport, of Somerwell Road, Harrow, north London, were cleared of blackmail and false imprisonment on March 7 and 8 last year.
ends
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