Armed police swooped on a house in Willesborough after several frantic phone calls from a man apparently being snatched from the street and held hostage.

Officers tracked down the source of the threatening calls and began preparing for a possible armed siege - but what they found was the "victim" and "kidnapper" sat in a garden having a cuppa together.

Now a judge has told both men that it had been a "spectacularly stupid offence" and the potential consequences "hardly bear thinking about".

She added: “Police were diverted from what they should have been doing in order to respond to what was in effect a hoax borne out of green and born out of a drugs habit.”

Canterbury Crown Court heard how Sam Kennett, 25, owed £1,800 to drug dealers – so he and pal, dad-of-three David Collins, 38, dreamed up the “blackmail” scam as a “bit of a lark”.

Kennett, of Speldhurst Close, Ashford was jailed for nine months and Collins, of Bentley Road, Willesborough, received a nine month sentence suspended for 18 months. Both admitted a fraud charge.

Prosecutor Allastair Walker told the court Kennett’s family had received a call claiming he had been kidnapped and would be assaulted unless £1,800 was handed over.

Several more calls were made to family members in which Collins could be heard in the background making threats, and police were alerted.

A specialist team, armed with guns, surrounded the house in Bentley Road in July - only to find both men enjoying a cup of tea.

James Warren, for Collins, said he had been trying to help a friend pay off the drug debt and was now petrified of going to prison.

The jobless tree surgeon collapsed weeping in the dock after being told he would keep his freedom, and staggered out of the courtroom, saying: “My legs have gone.”

Guy Wyatt, for Kennett said it had been “a fairly unambitious, unsophisticated scam” borne out of his problems with drink and drugs.

But Judge Heather Norton told him: “You were taken so seriously that an armed police response team was deployed in order to rescue you, Kennett.

“Fortunately the threats were not real and fortunately no one was injured when the police team was deployed and fortunately your family, at least, had some suspicions that all may not be as it appeared.

“Nevertheless the fear that must have passed through their minds would have been substantial.”

Collins, who was also given a six month home curfew order, told the judge: “You won’t see me back here again.”