A MAN accused of locking a woman in a loft has been cleared of false imprisonment but convicted of blackmail.

Tye Parker, 22, of Burr Close, Harwich, was also convicted of aggravated burglary and robbery following a trial at Ipswich Crown Court.

His co-defendant, Louie Charles, 21, of Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, was cleared of two counts of false imprisonment and single counts of blackmail and kidnap.

A trial had heard Minique Rivett was denied food and water and only managed to escape when she broke out and ran to a neighbour’s house for help.

The court was told Miss Rivett went to the house in Tottenham voluntarily.

Marc Brown, prosecuting, said, however, there was “no doubt”

once she was inside the loft she was “held against her will”.

The prosecution alleged demands were also made to the man Miss Rivett and her mother shared a house with in Ipswich to settle an alleged debt.

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Mr Brown said the case was a “complicated saga” of “serious offending” between February 19 and March 16, 2019.

On February 19, 2019, Bruno Sardhina, of Langley Crescent, Dagenham, was ambushed by three men in Haven Road, Colchester, whilst he was on his way to visit a friend at Essex University.

The court heard Mr Sardinha had been heading to the Maltings student accommodation but a black hatchback car had come out of a side road and cut him off.

The jury were told three men approached him holding a knife and a handgun.

Mr Brown said the men broke into Mr Sardinha’s house to rob his mother, father and two siblings.

Following that incident, Miss Rivett’s mother, who knew Parker, was instructed to dispose of the Mercedes in London but she “failed to complete the task”, Mr Brown told the jury.

Miss Rivett’s mother told police she was in debt with Parker for some cocaine for a “few hundred pounds” but demands were then made for £10,000.

Charles and Parker were further accused of kidnapping Laurel Aiken, who lived at the flat in Tottenham, and falsely imprisoning him at an address in Wolverhampton, but both were cleared of those charges by the jury.

Parker will be sentenced at the same court on April 19.