Birkenhead teen from religious family jailed for gun threat

Aug 12 2009 by Chloe Griffiths, Birkenhead News

AN “INTELLIGENT and articulate” teenager who threatened a mum with a gun is behind bars.

Liverpool Crown Court heard how drug dealing Mfingo Ntaka, 18, was from a “decent, hard-working” and religious family.

But he went off the rails after falling in the wrong crowd.

He was sent to a Young Offenders' Institute for three years on Monday after he revealed the imitation weapon while threatening mum-of-two Vicky Jones.

Judge David Boulton said: “You are an intelligent and articulate young man from a good family. You have let that family down badly.”

The judge went on to say his religious family, who were sat in the public gallery, needed to hear how Ntaka had admitted he had been dealing cocaine for a long time.

He told Ntaka's father, who works at Arrowe Park Hospital and his nurse mum that their son had been using the weapon to “instil fear” to get a £1,200 drug debt re-paid.

But Ntaka, of Grove Road, Birkenhead, pleaded guilty to criminal damage and possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence after harassing the innocent mum for the cash.

Damien Webb, prosecuting, told the court Ntaka had targeted the home of Ms Jones in the mistaken belief the man who owed him money lived there.

On April 1, he repeatedly banged on her window and eventually smashed it while demanding the man show himself. Just nine days later he returned to the property at 9pm while Ms Jones’s children were inside.