Two teenage girls kidnapped at knifepoint in Coventry and dumped in country lane - The Coventry Observer

Two teenage girls kidnapped at knifepoint in Coventry and dumped in country lane

Coventry Editorial 22nd Feb, 2017   0

Two teenagers were kidnapped at knifepoint, held in a car and threatened with being stabbed in the face, then robbed before being dumped in an isolated lane without their shoes.

One of the young women who had abducted them then went on to try to rob two other girls the following day, Warwick Crown Court heard.

Lana McMahon (19) and Amie Tomlinson (20) both pleaded guilty to two charges of kidnapping and two of robbery.

McMahon, who also admitted two further charges of attempted robbery, one of possessing a bladed article, and being in breach of a suspended sentence, was jailed for a total of six years and seven months.




Tomlinson was jailed for five years, and they were both made subject to restraining orders banning them from contacting their victims for ten years.

Prosecutor Paul Prior said in September last year, the first two victims travelled by bus to Jardine Crescent in Coventry to meet a young man called Kyle.


As they sat on a wall waiting for him, a car driven by Tomlinson pulled up and McMahon, who was in the passenger seat, called the girls over.

She asked one of them why she had been bullying her little sister. Mr Prior said that was just a ploy, and there was no evidence the girl even knew her sister.

As the teenager protested her innocence, Tomlinson got out the car, and the two girls were ordered to get in, being told they would be battered if they did not comply.

McMahon, who had already spoken to Kyle when he had phoned one of the girls and told him to meet them at a take-away, phoned him and threatened that if he did not turn up, she would ‘stab these two bitches in the face.’

The two girls were driven to a street in Tile Hill where they were told they were being taken to the middle of nowhere where they would be ‘stabbed up.’

They were driven off again, and McMahon produced a knife and told the victims a C would be carved into their faces as they were ordered to hand over their bags in which they had their phones, bank cards and other property.

At a country lane, they were made to take off their coats and shoes and to get out of the car, which drove off.

Stranded barefoot, late at night, they made their way to a house from where one of them called her father, and the police were contacted.

One of them later said she thought they were going to die during the ordeal, which had lasted for up to an hour.

Mr Prior said the next day a 17-year-old girl was walking home along Princethorpe Way, Coventry, listening to music on her i-Phone, when a car pulled up.

McMahon asked if she had been bullying her little sister, and demanded her phone, threatening to stab her if she did not hand it over. But the girl refused and ran off through traffic.

Later the same night, a 15-year-old girl was walking home along Roosevelt Drive, Tile Hill, when accosted in the same way by McMahon, who then grabbed her by the head and biting her nose ‘really hard,’ but retreated to the car when a householder saw the incident called out.

When the two defendants were arrested after being seen in Tomlinson’s car in Willenhall, Tomlinson denied the car was hers, but the key was found in her handbag.

In McMahon’s handbag officers found a kitchen knife and a phone taken from one of the girls the previous night, while at Tomlinson’s home they found one of the pairs of the victims’ shoes.

Mr Prior added McMahon had three earlier convictions for nine offences including assaults, but Tomlinson had just one previous conviction for battery in 2010.

Justin Jarmola, for McMahon, claimed: “She says she’s disgusted by what she’s done. Do not crush her, pass a sentence which will give her hope for the future.”

Lee Egan, for Tomlinson, said she had expressed remorse, and ‘is not coping well’ in custody.

Jailing the two women, Recorder David Chinery told them: “For the victims of these offences there can be nothing more serious in their minds than the situations in which they were put, in particular the first two. Lana McMahon, I regard you as the prime mover in this.”

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