Farmer’s thug attacker wins cut in sentence

Eight years for beating, tying up, dousing with petrol and dumping victim too great.
AN Oldham thug who left a farmer hooded, bound and doused in petrol after he was beaten unconscious at his isolated rural home, has had his minimum sentence slashed.

Elliot Ricketts (47), was jailed indefinitely for public protection after he was convicted of kidnapping David Turner (50), from his home near Rishworth, Halifax, in October, 2007.

Ricketts was given an eight-year minimum sentence, at Leeds Crown Court, but that was cut to six and a half years at London’s Criminal Appeal Court yesterday.

Ricketts, of Oak Road, Hollins, was part of a gang which targeted Mr Turner as he was nearing the gates of his secluded farm. Two masked men confronted him, one of them Ricketts, London’s Appeal Court heard.

Knowing he was in a desperate situation, the courageous farmer tried to fight his way out, knocking Ricketts to the ground and scratching his face before the gang finally knocked him out cold.

He was then handcuffed and hooded before being bundled into the boot of a car and driven to a near-by car park. Once there, he was doused in petrol and left stranded in the car park where he was later rescued by a woman motorist.

Ricketts challenged his eight-year minimum term as “manifestly excessive”.

Lord Justice Leveson, sitting with Mr Justice Davis and Mr Justice Tomlinson, said that Mr Turner had suffered a savage beating, with much of the violence completely gratuitous.

Ricketts also had an “appalling” criminal record, but the judge nevertheless ruled the eight-year minimum term was over the top.

However, the judge stressed that, even after Ricketts has served his new minimum sentence, he will not be freed unless and until the Parole Board concludes it is safe to do so.