A FORMER soldier has been jailed for trying to extort £3,000 from a Newton Abbot café owner by threatening to blow up his business.

James Bennett pretended to be a Special Branch police officer when he first approached owner George Stevens’s wife and scouted out the Lemon Jelli café in Newton Abbot.

They checked him out and found was not a real police officer but ran a personal training business and so broke off contact.

He then rang Mr Stevens to demand he pay a £3,000 debt which he claimed his son owed to drug dealers. He ordered him to drop the money at a garage in Ivybridge.

He told him ‘things are going to happen to you’ if he did not pay and sent voicemails in which he spoke about ‘keeping him alive and chopping his fingers off’ and his ‘business going boom’.

Bennett, aged 37, of New Park Road, Ivybridge, admitted blackmail and was jailed for 18 months by Judge David Evans at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him: ‘Some thought went into how you would call in this debt and you resorted to threatening to maim or kill or to damage the business itself. Those on the receiving end were stalwart but they did not know how it would end.’

Mr Peter Coombe, prosecuting, said Bennett learned of the alleged drug debt and contacted the family, initially posing as a Special Branch officer and claiming to be ex-SAS.

Mr Stevens daughter called him back and realised he was not a real police officer when he became foul-mouthed and abusive. She checked him out online and discovered he was a personal trainer.

He waited a month before contacting Mr Stevens in January 2020 to demand £3,000 and the police were called in because of the threats he was making to him, his business and his family.

Bennett claimed to be acting under pressure from drug dealers but checks on his mobile phone showed this was not the 

Miss Mary McCarthy, defending, said Bennett had a distinguished military career as a corporal in the army but was forced to leave the services in 2012 with PTSD.

He carried out the blackmail at a low point in his life when his relationship had broken up, he was using drugs and was desperate for money.

He has used the two years since his arrest to overcome his drug issues, start counselling for his PTSD and stabilise his life by becoming a manager at the Drakes Circus shopping centre in Plymouth.

She said the blackmail was unsuccessful and unsophisticated and that Bennett was certain to be caught because he was filmed on CCTV during his first visit to the café.