A man has been jailed for four years for kidnapping a Bradford schoolboy and demanding a £10,000 ransom from his mother.

The child was bundled into a car driven by Muhammed Khubaib and he was crying when ordered to tell her to hand over the money or “he wouldn’t be coming home.”

Khubaib, 22, of Florence Street, Bradford Moor, Bradford, pleaded guilty to kidnapping the boy from outside a takeaway in the city in May and making an unwarranted demand of £10,000 with menaces.

Prosecutor Laura McBride told Bradford Crown Court today that the teenage victim was targeted because the gang of four kidnappers believed he had recently come into some money.

Khubaib, a mobile tyre fitter, drove his accomplices to the takeaway in his Toyota Auris where they watched the boy until he came out on to the street.

One of Khubaib’s passengers then approached him, put his hand over his mouth and punched him to get him into the car.

The boy resisted but he was bundled into the back seat between two of the kidnappers.

A customer at the takeaway noted down the registration number and called the police.

The kidnappers took the boy’s bag and phone off him.

Khubaib operated the central locking and at one stage turned round and hit him in the face with a glove filled with sand.

His mother was called and the boy told her to draw out the money.

One of the men said: “So you’re gonna call your mum and (inaudible) £10,000 out right now, or else you’re not going home.”

They agreed to hand back the bag and the phone in return for £900 but they never did, Miss McBride said.

Khubaib drove to the teenager’s address and his mother handed over the £900. He was then freed from the car.

The court heard that the boy had since moved away from the Bradford area.

Khubaib’s barrister, Shufqat Khan, said he wasn’t the ringleader.

“He’s learned the hard way that you are the company you keep,” he told the court.

Khubaib was from a very respectable family who were “distraught and mortified” by what he had done but were in court to support him.

“He may have been carried along by more criminally minded associates,” Mr Khan said.

No member of Khubaib’s family had ever been in trouble before and they were left shocked, horrified and disappointed.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Richard Mansell QC, said Khubaib and his associates watched the boy, waiting for the moment to strike.

Khubaib was “a prime mover” driving the child away and hitting him in the face with the sand-filled glove.

The boy had now moved out of the area and felt he had lost control of his life, Judge Mansell said.

Khubaib’s prison sentence was to punish him and to deter others from committing similar crimes.