A MAN who kidnapped a terrified young woman in Cirencester as part of a plot to hold her to ransom and extort money from her wealthy boyfriend has been jailed for six years.

Tejay Baugh, 26, drove to Cirencester from London with two accomplices on October 31 last year and waited outside the 19-year-old's address until she got home, Gloucester Crown Court.

The masked and armed gang pounced on her when she arrived at 7.45pm and bundled her into the back of their car - a stolen Mercedes, said prosecutor Giles Nelson.

The petrified victim's housemate saw what was happening and ran out with a baseball bat to try to prevent the kidnapping but failed, he added.

Baugh and his accomplices, who had two knives between them, drove a few miles before stopping to use her phone to call her boyfriend and demand money and his bank details, the court heard.

Their attempts to extract money were unsuccessful leading the gang to warn the woman that they knew where her parents lived.

They also tried to access the woman's banking app without success before heading back to London.

By the time they reached Wiltshire, police were in pursuit, having been given the car’s registration and the woman’s phone number, which they could track.

A nine mile chase along the M4 reaching a speed of 144mph ensued, said Mr Nelson.

But another incident on the motorway at that time forced police to abandon the chase and Baugh and his companions got away.

They stopped near the Vodafone HQ in Newbury, where the woman managed to escape from the vehicle and flee, bringing her one-and-a half hour ordeal to an end.

She sought shelter at Vodafone and called the police.

The Mercedes, having sped off from Newbury, was found abandoned in the Didcot area.

Baugh was arrested at his home in Lidding Road, Harrow on November 16 after police found him hiding under his bed.

Mr Nelson told the court at the start of the hearing that he persuaded the two friends to join him by claiming the woman's boyfriend owed him money.

Baugh - who pleaded guilty to kidnapping - met the wealthy boyfriend while living in the Cirencester area after his release from an earlier prison sentence, Mr Nelson said.

In police interview Baugh said the boyfriend owed him money.

Lloyd Jenkins, defending, said it was a 'most disturbing case.'

“This case is especially sensitive as Baugh himself was himself kidnapped as a young man, he added. "He bitterly regrets his decision that day and expresses his deep remorse.

"A number of references have been submitted to the court to show there is a different side to him. He pleaded guilty to the kidnapping charge at this court in December.

“Baugh was born in Jamaica and moved to this country with his parents in 2002 at the age of five. "His father was deported back to his home country four years later because of his involvement in drugs and criminal gangs.

“Baugh suffered a fair amount of trauma during his young adult years.

"He was injured in a hit-and-run incident in 2011 and was kidnapped himself a year later by a criminal gang.

“His father was then shot dead by police in Jamaica in 2014. Baugh was stabbed in the right hand in 2015 because he didn’t follow the rules of the gang he had fallen in with."

Jailing him for six years at the hearing on January 31, Judge Rupert Lowe told Baugh: “I’ve read the victim’s statement and I can see that this whole incident was a nightmare for her.

"You’ve probably traumatised her for the rest of her life.”