Two men locked a woman in a loft and tried to blackmail a man she was living with, a court 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, Ipswich Crown Court was told.

Louie Charles, 21, who was a university student living in Wivenhoe Park in Colchester, denies charges of blackmail, kidnap and two charges of false imprisonment.

His alleged accomplice, Tye Parker, 22, of Burr Close, Ramsey, also denies the charges plus counts of robbery and aggravated burglary relating to a separate incident.

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”.

Demands were also made to the man Miss Rivett and her mother shared a house with in Ipswich, to settle an alleged debt, Mr Brown said.

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

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

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.

Three men approached him holding a knife and a handgun.

The  men, whose identity is unconfirmed, then stole the white Mercedes Mr Sardinha had hired along with his driving licence, phone and a pair of shoes.

Mr Brown said the men used the driving licence to locate Mr Sardinha’s home address in Dagenham and they drove there from Colchester.

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

He said: “In the early hours of February 20, at 1.35am, we know Tye Parker was within a few feet of the front door of the address in Dagenham.

“That’s powerful evidence to suggest Mr Parker had been involved in the taking of the Mercedes and he travelled to Dagenham having found Mr Sardinha’s address on his driving licence.”

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.

Miss Rivett then went to the house in Tottenham on March 4 and escaped on March 8, the court heard.

harles and Parker are further accused of kidnapping Laurel Aiken, who lived at the flat in Tottenham, and falsely imprisoning him at an address in Wolverhampton. 

The trial continues.