Dumped ex-soldier caged after cutting brakes on ex’s family car

A DUMPED ex-soldier has been jailed after taking revenge on his ex’s family by cutting the brakes on their cars to make them deathtraps.

Former squaddie James Stimson, 19, had marched to former love Tamsin Johnson’s in Torrington, Devon, to demand a ring back from her.

But when her brother Joshua and sister Molly told him to sling his hook, Stimson, a mechanic, fled before secretly returning.

In the dead of night on September 13 he sabotaged the siblings’ motors before sneaking off.

Molly was lucky to escape with her life after setting off for work at 5.15am the next morning only to discover the brakes did not work on a hill near her home.

She somehow managed to use the gears and handbrake to stop the Ford Ka without a crash while Josh learned his Vauxhall Corsa was compromised before he set off through a warning dashboard light.

Stimson, of Tiverton, Devon, admitted two counts of causing damage, being reckless whether life was endangered and was jailed for two years and four months by Judge Geoffrey Mercer QC.

He told him: “I accept you were in a very emotional state at the time, but these were very, very serious offences.

"You cut the brake pipes on two cars and loosened the rear wheel nuts on one. It was not done on the spur of the moment. You went and fetched tools with which to do it.

"It is obvious that the consequences could have been infinitely more serious than happily they were. As a mechanic, you understood that."

The court heard Molly had been left terrified and scared to get behind the wheel again.

A mechanic discovered on Josh’s car the brakes did not work and nuts had been removed which meant the wheels would have fallen off if it had been driven.

When an expert examined the car they described it as “a death trap”.

Stimson had been in a relationship with Tamsin for 14 months before they broke up.