Man charged after dissapearance

A man whose disappearance sparked a kidnap alert that ended with a police swoop on a hotel has been charged with a blackmail plot.

Craig Allee, 21, a spina bifida sufferer, vanished from the home he shares with his mother in Alfred Mews, central Liverpool, on 23 November last year. Police imposed a media blackout after his father, Gordon Allee, received a pounds 51,000 ransom demand.

Mr Allee was found safe after 19 hours when armed police staged a stun- grenade raid on the West Lodge Park Hotel in Barnet, north London, and arrested five people. A Merseyside Police spokesman said yesterday that Mr Allee and his mother Anne Dixon, 42, had both been charged with conspiracy to blackmail following an investigation into the alleged kidnap.