Six members of a kidnap and burglary gang have been jailed for a combined 49 years after abandoning their 71-year-old victim in the boot of his own electric car when their getaway vehicle ran out of charge. The men, all from Swindon, Wiltshire, were sentenced at Exeter Crown Court on 14 July after pleading guilty to a string of offences including kidnap, false imprisonment and burglary, following a police investigation that spanned multiple forces across the south-west.
The ordeal began when Franklin O’Dwyer, Altan O’Connell and Luke McInerney broke into the victim’s home in Torquay, Devon, at 1am on 14 January 2026, demanding he hand over his watches after spotting them in videos he had posted on Instagram. When the victim told them his watches had already been stolen, the men kidnapped him instead, binding his hands with cable ties, taping his mouth, and placing him in the back of his own electric car. The court heard the gang had planned to take him to an address in London, where they believed further watches could be found.
The plan unravels on the motorway
O’Connell and McInerney drove north up the M5 with their victim, but had only reached Bridgwater when the car’s battery began running critically low. With no charge left, the pair moved the victim into the boot and abandoned the vehicle in a country lane near Puriton in Somerset before fleeing the scene. The victim managed to free himself from the cable ties, climb out of the boot, and locate the car keys, using the last of the vehicle’s remaining battery power to drive to a nearby supermarket, where he raised the alarm.
Describing the ordeal in a statement to the court, the victim said: “I became genuinely frightened and believed I was likely to die.”
A pattern of offending across the south-west
The court heard the group’s botched escape ultimately led police straight to them. Investigators went on to link the gang to a burglary in Southampton that had taken place three days before the Torquay kidnapping, helping establish a broader pattern of offending across the region. The gang’s own carelessness proved a further gift to detectives: investigators discovered the group had hired vehicles using their own names and bank details, a mistake that helped police trace their movements throughout the operation.
During coordinated raids on addresses in Swindon, officers recovered a substantial haul of stolen property, including luxury watches, jewellery, designer handbags, cash, drones, stolen vehicles, balaclavas, hammers and multiple mobile phones. Examinations of the group’s phones revealed they had searched victims’ Instagram accounts and used open-source online research tools to gather information and plan their crimes, a method investigators say they relied on repeatedly to identify targets.
Sentences handed down
Franklin O’Dwyer, 25, was sentenced to 10 years and five months for his role in the kidnap and related burglaries. O’Connell, 27, and McInerney, 31, were each jailed for 11 years and 10 months. Three further gang members involved in separate burglaries, Nicholas O’Dwyer, 56, Dwain Stratford, 35, and Karl Houghton, 36, received sentences of six years and three months, four years and eight months, and four years respectively.
Police reaction
Senior Investigating Officer Detective Inspector Tom Canning praised the scale of the investigation that brought the group to justice. “This case has involved a significant investigation involving multiple forces, specialist technical investigative skills, and collating a case while ultimately resulted in six guilty pleas,” he said. He also used the case to highlight the risks of sharing images of valuable possessions online. “Social media is a common part of modern life, but this case is a reminder that it does come with risks and is an example of how people can seek out and use that information against you if they have ill intention,” Canning said. “I would urge people to consider what they post onto social media and into the public domain. Do you know what information could be extracted from your pictures are video and even who can see them?”
