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| Men jailed for Staffordshire nail bombing plot | Men jailed for Staffordshire nail bombing plot |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Four men have been jailed for nail bomb explosions at houses in Staffordshire. | Four men have been jailed for nail bomb explosions at houses in Staffordshire. |
| Jason Taft, 42, from Bagnall, received 16 years for conspiring to cause explosions and six years for conspiring to make death threats. | Jason Taft, 42, from Bagnall, received 16 years for conspiring to cause explosions and six years for conspiring to make death threats. |
| Thomas Leslie, 35, from Belfast, received 14 years and five years for the same charges. | Thomas Leslie, 35, from Belfast, received 14 years and five years for the same charges. |
| Kevin Proctor, 44, from Stoke, and Martin Drewery, 43, from Staffordshire Moorlands, received nine years for conspiring to cause explosions. | Kevin Proctor, 44, from Stoke, and Martin Drewery, 43, from Staffordshire Moorlands, received nine years for conspiring to cause explosions. |
| A fifth man, Andrew Boal, 32, from Ballygowan, County Down, was sentenced to five years for conspiring to make threats to kill. | |
| All were convicted at Stafford Crown Court on Tuesday, following a 14-week trial. | All were convicted at Stafford Crown Court on Tuesday, following a 14-week trial. |
| 'Dispute over money' | |
| Both Taft and Leslie's sentences for their two convictions will run concurrently. | |
| Boal was found not guilty of conspiring to cause explosions of a nature likely to endanger life or cause serious injury. | |
| Proctor and Drewery were found not guilty of conspiring to make threats to kill. | |
| During the trial the court heard they targeted workers linked to a local businessman in a dispute over money. | |
| The prosecution claimed that as part of a campaign of threats and intimidation Taft recruited the other men to help build bombs on his Staffordshire farm. | |
| The jury heard that the first nail bomb exploded on 3 August outside a family home containing eight people, including a five-month-old baby. | |
| A neighbour, who wished to remain anonymous, told reporters: "They [the people in the house] were clearly panicked because they'd got a little baby... The bomb had shot nails all over their house and it really frightened them." | |
| On the same night another bomb was set off at a house in Cheadle, the court was told, where a family with three children was at home. | |
| A third bomb then exploded at a house in Weston Coyney, where neighbours heard a very large bang and saw someone running back to a car before it drove off. | |
| Det Ch Insp Darren Harding, who led the investigation, said: "Threatening, intimidating behaviour and more seriously, nail bombings, will not be tolerated in Staffordshire and although the wider public's safety was not at risk, this was undoubtedly a very serious crime and the defendants must now face the consequences of their involvement." | |
| No one has been charged with planting the bombs. |