Apprentice contestant Jessica Cunningham’s ex-jailbird uncle was kidnapped and tortured by gangland thugs

APPRENTICE hopeful Jessica Cunningham’s uncle is an ex lag who was kidnapped and tortured by gangsters.

Alec Cunningham was stripped, beaten and burnt with cigarettes after trying to rip off partners in a £500,000 drug deal

The ex stripper’s family member was taken from his home in Burnley to a house in Manchester, reports.

Thugs demanded £500,000 in ransom for the snatched gem dealer, holding him for 10-hours.

Cunningham even had his legs doused in scolding hot water and was eventually freed after a bag full of gold bars, jewellery, watches and £14,000 cash was handed over to the abductors.

The ex con was then dumped outside a pub in Manchester with tape wrapped around his head, wearing nothing but a pair of shredded underpants in 2003.

Fiver men were caged for a total of almost 50 years for the abduction at Preston Crown Court in 2005.

The ring leader Ajay Kaushal went on the lamb but was sentenced to 15 years in his absence.

The 50-year-old criminal died in an Indian prison in 2010.

Cunningham was jailed the following year in 2006 for perjury after the dad-of-three lied to the court.

A pal of online fashion entrepreneur Jess told The Sunday People: “It never had any impact on her.

“She isn’t close to her father’s side of the family at all and really doesn’t know Alec.”

It was also revealed that the father of the contestant’s three kids was given a suspended 15-month sentence for money laundering at the same court in 2013.

On Thursday night’s episode the ex stripper avoided getting booted off after the girls lost the opening task.

Lord Sugar fired the team leader Michelle Niziol after they came second to the boys in the flogging vintage collectables task in the first week.

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