A SHOP owner who blackmailed and kidnapped a “lifelong friend” as he owed him £10,000 from a business debt has been jailed.

Bradford Crown Court heard that Paul Gill and Suhayl Khan, both 32, knew their victim, Sanjay Mitra, when they threatened and detained him on April 26 last year.

Prosecutor Rebecca Young told the court that Mr Mitra, who was described as being “almost family” with Gill, rented the Birkenshaw Convenience Store from him at some point in 2014. A verbal agreement was put in place for Mr Mitra to pay rents and take over business accounts in Gill’s name.

Miss Young said that Mr Mitra became concerned the lease for the shop would never be signed over to him, leading to a disagreement that saw him “walk away” from the business in January 2016.

He subsequently spent some time abroad in India, at which point he started receiving threatening texts from Khan saying he owed money to Gill.

Miss Young said that after changing his number, Mr Mitra heard nothing more until April 26 when he was visiting his cousin, Satinder Singh, who ran the Bargain Booze store in Galloway Lane, Pudsey.

Khan was said to be “waiting” at the shop, and told Mr Mitra that Gill wanted to talk to him at his Birkenshaw store.

On arrival at around 6pm, Gill lowered the shutters of the shop and asked Mr Mitra why hadn’t paid the £10,000 he owed him.

On the threats made to the victim, Miss Young said: “Mr Gill said he would have to break an arm or a leg to get payment.”

The victim was then driven around for a few hours as further threats were made, pulling up in Bradford at one point where two men got out of another car and punched Mr Mitra twice in the face.

The court heard that Khan was eventually dropped off at his parent’s house at around 1.15am the following morning, having been forced to make calls to his mother in a bid to get the money together. After further threats of physical violence were made against him, Mr Mitra called the police.

Gill, of Manor Road, Derby, and Khan, of Waterloo Grove, Pudsey, both pleaded guilty to blackmail and kidnapping, with Khan admitting an additional charge of intimidating a witness in the case, Mr Singh.

Anthony Kelbrick, for Gill, said the disagreement had arisen as Mr Mitra had “walked away from a business he had allowed to deteriorate to a significant extent.”

He said that while his client had turned over £30,000 running the business, Mr Mitra had turned that figure into a £9,000 loss.

He said: “Here was a man who had cost him a huge amount of money and he wanted it rectified. Initially it was not an unfriendly meeting, the complainant was free to leave. We then see an example of how easy it is for things to get out-of-hand.”

Alasdair Campbell, for Khan, said that while the whole incident had lasted five to six hours, the time Mr Mitra was detained against his will was “significantly shorter.”

He said the pair’s actions were not planned, and resulted out of an “innocent meeting that spiralled out of control.”

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Sentencing Khan to seven years in prison and Gill to six-and-a-half, Judge Colin Burn told the pair: “You both used blackmail and kidnap in order to pursue a debt. Although that debt was legitimate, the means you used to recover it were far from it. Your methods were used to intimidate and threaten. You are both family men. It is hardly credible that you both behaved in this crude and violent way to someone who was known to you.”