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Teen bound and beaten by gang in drugs dispute
The Gazette
|June 26, 2025
A DRUGS dispute resulted in five men “hatching a plan” to kidnap a 17-year-old.
Brothers Shaun Thompson and Lewis Thompson, with Jamie Lawrence, Michael Townsend and Jack Carlsson, chased their victim across The Greenway, in Thorntree, Middlesbrough in a white transit van.
The teen desperately cycled away as one man tried to grab him from the moving van.
Children were playing nearby, on the afternoon of Saturday, June 1, last year, as Michael Townsend fell out of the moving van during the kidnap. Townsend’s machete also fell onto the green, along with a trainer.
The gang stopped the van and got hold of their victim, before subjecting him to a vicious beating, repeatedly hitting him over the head and shoulders with a sword - with such force the weapon broke.
They kicked him as he lay on the ground, before dragging him into the van, along with his bike, where his hands were bound.
CCTV footage captured the men chasing their victim.
This story is from the June 26, 2025 edition of The Gazette.
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