A FRIEND of a businessman allegedly snatched from his home as part of a 10-hour kidnap ordeal told a court he handed over £10,000 cash to two strangers in a car.

Self-employed builder Michael Connelly owed the money to Alec Cunningham after borrowing it to help with his construction business, Preston Crown Court heard.

The builder was giving evidence in the trial of eight men who deny conspiring to kidnap Cunningham on June 17 last year. Seven are from the Manchester area and Jeffrey Mason, 42, of Haslingden Road, Guide. Connelly said he had called Burnley businessman Cunningham on June 17 to arrange to pay back the debt.

He said he went to Burnley town centre to meet Cunningham or his partner Shirley Murtagh at Cunningham's New and Used shop in Plumbe Street.

But when he arrived the builder said he received a call from Alec Cunningham's mobile phone and a stranger's voice told him to hand over the cash to a car which would arrive in the street.

He said: "It was a man's voice with a Liverpool accent. He asked me 'Have you got the money there?' and I said yes. He said a car would come along Plumbe Street and that I should put the money in the car. I waited about five minutes and a car came along. I passed the money through the driver's window and the car drove off."

Earlier the court heard Cunningham was taken from his house in Todmorden Road and held at a house in Manchester.

The father-of-three was dumped in a street in Stretford in the early hours of the following morning after friends and family rallied in a bid to find the £500,000 ransom demanded by the kidnappers, the court was told.

The seven other men in the dock apart from Mason are: Ajay Kaushal, 44, of Stretford; Arfan Javed, 24, of Longsight; Domenyk Lattlay-Fottfoy, 40, of Manchester; Jonathan Chadwick, 29, of Stretford; Alexander Singh, 32, of Stretford; Mohammed Imran, 21, of Longsight and Rambir Singhlanda, 32, of Whalley Range.

(Proceeding)