Batley kidnap victim jailed for robbing pensioner

Robert Lodge, 22, was branded “wicked and despicable” after targeting a kind-hearted pensioner who agreed to sponsor him if it was for a good cause.

Leeds Crown Court heard how Lodge himself had been a victim of crime after being kidnapped and threatened with knives last August, as reported last week in the News.

This week Lodge was jailed for three years for his sponsorship scam.

Prosecutor Ewan McLachlan said Lodge had previously been ordered to perform unpaid work for the community for public order and handling offences.

He had been carrying out that community sentence near Altofts, Wakefield, in October last year when he turned up at the pensioner’s home with a clip board and an official-looking sponsorship form.

The victim asked Lodge, formerly of Ossett, how much people had been sponsoring him, and was told £5.

The pensioner took a bundle of notes, worth £150, from his pocket and began looking for a fiver.

But Lodge grabbed the lot and left.

The court heard Lodge, who admitted burglary, had previous convictions for similar offences involving bogus sponsorship.

Abdul Iqbal, mitigating, said the chronology began in August, 2011, when his client was kidnapped for 17 hours and threatened with weapons in a dispute over a car .

As the News reported last week, Lodge was kidnapped from Batley, where he was living at the time.

As a result, Mr Iqbal said, Lodge was increasingly using sedatives and other non-prescribed drugs, which he needed money to pay for.

He went knocking on doors - while subject to the community order - to perpetrate his fraud.

But Mr Iqbal said Lodge’s time on remand hadn’t been easy as he had been put in the same prison as his tormentors and subjected to threats and violence.

The court heard his family had also suffered and been moved to a secret location with the help of the police.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC, passing sentence, said: “The ordeal to which you were subjected in August of last year was a truly horrific one, of that I accept. What it wasn’t was an excuse to revert to the sort of behaviour that you had displayed in the past.”

He added: “It was a wicked and despicable thing to do.”