Kidnapper left couple fearing they would die

DRUNKEN THUG ORDERED YOUNG VICTIMS TO DRIVE HIM IN THEIR CAR

-  ANDREW BARDSLEY

A COUPLE were kidnapped by a stranger who ordered them to drive during a terrifying ordeal.

Hayden Briggs subjected the pair, both 20, to a traumatising experience after targeting them in a bizarre 'spur of the moment' crime.

A male victim had been in Fallowfield visiting his girlfriend for the weekend when he was inflating his tyre near her home. But Briggs, 35, who had been drinking, suddenly appeared and told him 'I'm taking your car, Manchester Crown Court heard.

It ended with Briggs, from Gorton, ordering the traumatised couple to drive around in their Ford Fiesta for about 20 minutes, before they urged him to take their car as they desperately fled to safety. They rang the police after locking themselves in the toilets of a McDonald's restaurant. Briggs, who was also sentenced for assaulting his ex-partner, has now been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Prosecutors told how the kidnapping unfolded at about 5pm on Sunday,

November 19, last year. The male victim saw Briggs walking down the street as he worked on his car.