KIDNAP victim Wasim Yaqub sobbed as he told a jury how he was repeatedly hit with hammers and stripped naked in a storage unit after being seized outside his Kidderminster home.

Mr Yaqub, speaking by video link from a secret location, clutching a crutch and frequently dabbing his eyes and nose with a tissue, also told Worcester Crown Court he was tied up in the boot of a car and stabbed.

Mr Yaqub, 37, alleged he was told by the gang who attacked him that they had his partner, Stacey Bayley and two children in another container and they were “doing the same” to them.

Earlier, Mr Yaqub, who had been an estate agent in Birmingham, said he had been living in fear since a property deal went wrong and had been forced to move every few months.

In 2009, he took £30,000 of Tariq Mahmood’s money, £10,000 of his own and £10,000 invested by another man in cash to London to deal in Bulgarian property with two men but they took the money and he could not get hold of them.

After Mahmood found out, he was threatened with physical violence, followed, harassed and his business was ruined, said Mr Yaqub.

He left the area and became paranoid, living in 17 properties in four years, never staying more than a few months in each.

His partner’s parents moved to Bewdley but he did not reveal his own address because, he told the jury, they had been acting suspiciously.

Robert Collins, 58, his partner’s father, was the one who set the kidnap in operation after Miss Bayley told her parents she and Mr Yaqub would be moving to London next day, the jury has been told.

Collins, of Eastham Court, Severnside, Bewdley, and Robert Watters, 47, of Chester Road, Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, have admitted conspiracy to kidnap and will be sentenced after the trial.

Tariq Mahmood, 41, of Castle Hill Drive, Castle Bromwich, who originally denied all charges against him, has now changed his pleas to guilty to conspiracy to kidnap, false imprisonment and causing grievous bodily harm and to a new charge of wounding. He continues to deny wounding with intent.

Alongside him is his brother Tehery Mahmood, 37, of Mears Drive, Stechford, Birmingham, who denies false imprisonment and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Paul Murray, 42, of no fixed address, has also changed three of his pleas, now admitting conspiracy to kidnap, false imprisonment and causing grievous bodily harm. He denies wounding and wounding with intent.

Steven Taylor, 37, of Johnstone Street, Aston, Birmingham, denies false imprisonment, wounding and wounding with intent.

Kulbir Bains, 40, of Gilson Road, Birmingham, denies false imprisonment.

Mr Yaqub told the jury he was attacked by a black man after returning to his home in Upton Road, Kidderminster, from his job delivering Chinese takeaways after 10pm on August 3 last year.

The black man and Tariq Mahmood - whom he called “Tic” - picked him up by his legs and neck and put him in the car, where they punched him in the head and one of them tried to break his legs by sitting on them, said Mr Yaqub.

It is alleged that Mr Yaqub was taken to a farm in Birmingham, owned by Bains, where he was put in a container unit and stripped.

“Tic was saying ‘bring the hammers in’,” said Mr Yaqub. “They were hitting me all over my legs, my arm, my back. I had nowhere to move - I was in a corner.”

“They ripped all my clothes off and left me naked, punching and kicking me.”

Mr Yaqub said he was later tied up with black tie fasteners and put, bleeding, in the boot of a car.

Eventually the car was parked in a residential street and he banged on a window, alerting two girls, who began phoning the police - but Tariq Mahmood allegedly “scared them off”.

The car was moved again to another street and Mr Yaqub said Tariq Mahmood told him he was being “let off”.

The boot was opened and the cable ties cut but he claimed he was threatened that if he went to the police his family would all die.

Mr Yaqub said his injuries included two broken legs, a broken orbit of the eye, stab wounds and broken teeth and he was still having medical treatment a year later.

The trial continues.