A SHEFFIELD gang member jailed for helping to kidnap and torture a man has failed in a bid to overturn his convictions.
Trevor Chrouch, 42, of Ormes Meadow, Owlthorpe, was one of a five-strong mob who attacked Alan Clarke, a former employee of one of the gang, over an alleged debt.
Chrouch was jailed indefinitely at Maidstone Crown Court in November 2007, after being found guilty of conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to falsely imprison.
London's Court of Appeal heard Mr Clarke was a former worker at a storage company run by fellow gang member Dean Rice.
Rice organised Chrouch and the others into a team, to intimidate his employee into handing over the cash.
On one occasion, Mr Clarke was tied up in a warehouse, beaten, shocked with a stun gun and told he would be injected with a syringe containing HIV positive blood.
He was also grabbed by the gang on a street in Camden, north London, and taken to a farm near Ashford, Kent.
Mr Clarke was tied to a radiator and threatened with a gun, but escaped by jumping out of a window and flagging down a passing motorist.
Asking for permission to appeal against his convictions, Chrouch criticised his legal team and the original trial judge's handling of the case. But Mr Justice Griffith Williams ruled there was "no substance" to his grounds of appeal.
