On August 11, 2021, a 17-year-old boy was approached on a footbridge linking Fishponds Road and Valley Road, Northampton, by 19-year-old Aramis Sullivan, who asked him for cannabis.
When the boy said he couldn’t help and walked off, he heard Sullivan tell someone “There is a lad coming over, he has a good tracksuit on, it looks like he has a good amount of money”.
Another male then approached the boy and told him “You’re coming with me”, before taking him to a wooded area off Valley Road, where Sullivan, previously of Luton, was waiting.
Sullivan threatened the boy, making him call his parents to ask for money before he could be let go. The victim’s mother ended up having to travel to the wooded area, paying £200 to secure her son’s safe release.
The following day, August 12, Sullivan, and Brandon Southall, aged 25, previously of Birmingham, approached two young men inside Mcdonald’s in Drapery, Northampton, and intimidated them into leaving.
Once outside, Sullivan and Southall made the pair drive them to Coventry under threats of harm if they didn’t comply, demanding £1,000 in order to secure their release. The boys managed to raise £500 from relatives and friends before being forced to bank transfer and withdraw the remaining £500.
The victims were then forced to drive to Birmingham, where they were taken into a house with the suspects, before getting told to drive back to Northampton. In total, the two victims had to stay with Sullivan and Southall and drive them around for about six hours, before the pair got out of the car in Northampton to speak to someone and the two victims managed to drive off.
Sullivan pleaded guilty to three counts of blackmail and two counts of kidnap at an earlier hearing at Northampton Crown Court and was sentenced at the same court in February this year to a total of five years and three months in prison.
He was also sentenced to 12 months for the robbery of a schoolboy in McDonald’s in Watford, where he walked the victim under threat to an ATM to withdraw money, as well as making the boy call his mum to arrange a bank transfer.
Further offences he was sentenced for were another attempted robbery, for which he received a 12-month sentence, and one of fraud, for which he received another 12 months. These three sentences will run concurrently to one another, and consecutively to the sentences for the Northampton offences, adding a further 12 months to Sullivan’s overall prison term.
Southall pleaded guilty to two counts of kidnap and two of blackmail at an earlier hearing at Northampton Crown Court and was sentenced at the same court on Friday, April 14, to a total of four and a half years.
At the same hearing, Southall was also sentenced to 33 months for a 2020 robbery offence, and three months for a 2019 theft, both committed in Birmingham, as well as two offences which took place in Leicestershire – one count of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs for which he received a 42-month sentence and six months for one count of making indecent images of children. He was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for seven years.
All Southall’s sentences will be served consecutively, making a total of 11 years in prison.
