A TERRIFYING gang were jailed for a total of 19 years after blackmailing a York father for £12,000 and threatening his grandchildren.

Paul Richards, 30, Kevin Ingram, 32, and Hesan Zaboli, 25, took Neil Coates to a house in Manchester and demanded his father pay the ransom to release him, Leeds Crown Court heard yesterday.

For four days Peter Parkin-Coates, 57, received terrifying phone calls telling him his son would be harmed unless he left the money at a service station on the M62.

Prosecutor Tony Kelbrick told the court how Richards, of Manchester, and Ingram, also of Manchester, were working on behalf of ringleader Zaboli, of Stockport, Cheshire, when they visited Neil Coates’s house in York four times and threatened his family, before taking him and demanding the release money.

Mr Coates’ ex-girlfriend, Tracey Crosby, was at the family home in the Tang Hall area of York with their two children, aged five and three, when she heard a hand rattling the letterbox on March 7 this year and discovered strangers Richards and Ingram, who walked in wearing black gloves and demanded to see Mr Coates.

Mr Kelbrick said: “She was frightened.

“The visits, they said, are going to get nasty.”

Ms Crosby phoned Mr Coates, who said he owed the men some money and would sort the situation out, but the defendants returned a further three times, which scared one of the children so much they had since received counselling. On March 30, their final visit, Ingham and Richards forced a terrified Ms Crosby to phone Mr Coates, who was told she would be hurt if he did not show up.

When he did, Mr Coates was bundled into the back of the defendants’ car and driven to Manchester while the thugs phoned his father to demand money.

Recorder Duncan Smith told the three defendants they had caused serious distress to the victims.

He said: “Blackmail is one of the most heinous cries in the criminal catalogue.

“Blackmail, it is said, amounts to the murder of the soul.

“What makes this offence serious is the use of fear, very real fear.

“At one stage you even said to Neil Coates: ‘I am stood watching your kids’.

“You went on to say you were going to ‘hurt the missus’, terrifying Tracey Crosby.”

Richards and Ingram each received five years for their parts in the crime and Zaboli was sentenced to nine years.

Richards and Ingram had both pleaded guilty at York Crown Court in July to conspiracy to blackmail. Zaboli denied the charge, but was found guilty by a jury at Hull Crown Court last month.

Richards and Ingram were arrested as part of an armed police operation to release Mr Coates on April 3 and Zaboli, the ringleader, was later tracked down, the court was told.

Michael Hopkinson, for Richards, said his client had entered an early guilty plea and had been a model prisoner since his time on remand.

Nicholas Johnson, mitigating for Ingram, said he had also entered an early guilty plea and he too had used his time in prison to good use.

Michael Brady, mitigating for Zaboli, said his client had been unable to see his newborn son who was born in November since he was arrested.