A woman has been sentenced to three years and nine months in jail for her role in the knifepoint kidnapping of a man in Plumstead.

Jade Bowden, 27, of no fixed address, was the final member of a group of four men and one woman who kidnapped a 22-year old man on April 19 last year.

She pleaded guilty to being the driver of the car used to kidnap the victim on the first day of her trial and to one count of conspiracy to kidnap.

The victim was wrongly suspected by the group of having stolen between £30,000 and £40,000 worth of crack cocaine and heroin from a drugs safe house in Gilbourne Road in Plumstead.

The gang wanted their drugs back and violently attacked the victim with a knife, as he was driven to a remote rural location in Southfleet.

Once in Kent, the man was beaten, tortured, robbed and stabbed by his captors in agricultural fields after midnight.

The victim's ordeal came to an end when the Kent, Sussex and Surrey Air Ambulance helicopter flew over the fields testing its search light ahead of a response to an unrelated road traffic crash a mile away.

The group who had kidnapped the man mistook the air ambulance for police activity related to their actions and scrambled to get away, allowing the victim to run away into the darkness, and seek assistance.

The victim was treated in hospital for serious stab wounds to the hands, and is yet to fully recover from his injuries.

Detectives from the Met Police investigated the kidnapping and located a drugs factory and a substantial amount of crack cocaine at an address in Plumstead.

Detectives identified and arrested Ms Bowden and the four men after communication between them was established, proving they were in contact with each other, placing them at key locations in London and Kent.

Another man was arrested for perverting the course of justice.

Five of the defendants were sentenced in December 2017 and January 2018.

Detective Constable Andrew Payne said: “This latest and final conviction closes what has been an exhaustive and challenging investigation into an organised crime group, who committed a vicious and sustained attack on the victim.

“It was a brutal attack committed in an isolated field in the Kent countryside. Lengthy custodial sentences have been imposed, totalling over 40 years."