TWO men, who kidnapped and assaulted a father-of-six in order to exact revenge over an affair they believed he aided, have been jailed for 14 years in total.

Ghufran Khalid, 40, and Paul Serrant, 29, were both found guilty after a trial of the two offences, and Serrant was also convicted of threatening with an offensive weapon, a machete.

The pair, who both live in Withins Close, Great Horton, were also found not guilty of blackmailing the kidnap victim Ataf Ali.

In sentencing, Recorder Patrick Palmer said: "This was a planned ambush and revenge attack on Mr Ali."

He added: "I take the view, Mr Khalid, that you planned this attack and you recruited Mr Serrant to carry out the violence as part of this attack."

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He sentenced the pair to seven years imprisonment each.

Serrant was also sentenced to ten months for supplying cannabis dating back to May 2018 and eight months for an affray outside a Bradford mini mart in May 2019.

It emerged at Bradford Crown Court earlier today that the kidnap lasted around 30 minutes, with Khalid driving and Serrant the back seat passenger, after which Mr Ali was able to escape.

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He was left with bruising having been punched, choked with a seat belt and hit with the blunt end of the machete.

During their police interviews, both defendants denied involvement in the attack on Mr Ali which began outside his house in Lidget Green in November 2018.

The jury heard at the start of the trial that he had been sitting in his own car when he was ordered into a distinctive white Mercedes car, threatened with a machete and assaulted before he was able to make a run for it.

Prosecutor Gerald Hendron told the jury that Mr Ali was driven off and assaulted because he was said to have facilitated an affair by giving a friend a lift to Leeds.

He said they believed that Mr Ali had given a lift to a man called Imran Sajwal, who was thought to be having an affair with Khalid’s wife.

“Mr Ali says he was told to get out of his car and get into the Mercedes. He says he was scared to do so out of fear of violence. The prosecution say he was right to be scared," he added.

The jury was told that CCTV footage captured in Westcroft Road, Great Horton, showed the same distinctive car pulled up and a man getting out of the passenger side door.

It showed the man, said to be Serrant, opening the front passenger door, with what appeared to be a machete in his hand.

Mr Ali, 37, told the court during the trial that Khalid demanded to know why he had given his wife a lift.

He said he told them: "I just gave them a lift. What have I done wrong?”

In mitigation, the court heard yesterday that the incident had been born out of Khalid's "fury and jealousy over his wife's affair" but that the violence had escalated and it was "misplaced retribution".

The court also heard that Serrant had nothing to do with the original argument over "giving a ride to the paramour", adding that "by choice" he had used the blunt edge of the machete rather than the blade, inflicting bruises instead of cuts, and that the attack involved "psychological fear rather than a desire to cause lasting damage".