A ‘vigilante group’ lured their victim to a derelict building, attacked him with metal sticks and robbed him.

Balint Besze, Theo Hallworth, and Reuben Willard used a teenage girl to get the boy to an abandoned car workshop and waited in boiler suits and masks before attacking him with metal sticks.

The attack was linked to allegations made by a female friend of Besze. Private messages on the victim’s Instagram account proved the allegations to be false.

Besze, 20, Hallworth, 19, and Willard, 19, planned to force a confession from their victim rather than establish if the allegations were true or false.

A separate female friend of the trio, now aged 19, spent a week talking to the victim on social media before arranging to meet him at a disused car workshop in Newtown Road in Hove in March, 2021.

After walking into the trap, the vigilantes forced their victim to hand over his phone, wallet, passport, rucksack and shoes.

After the assault the victim was forced to catch a bus to a friend’s house without money or shoes, before reporting the crime to the police.

The trio were subsequently arrested and charged with false imprisonment and robbery.

They admitted the charges in police interviews but denied that they used weapons.

Their claim was proved to be false at another legal hearing.

Sussex Police investigating officer Rose Horan said: "These youths took it upon themselves to act as vigilantes in setting up a honey trap.

“The three defendants, who were of previous good character with bright futures ahead of them, now find themselves in prison for what is probably the biggest mistake they will ever make. The whole plot was ill conceived from the start.

"The victim was, and remains, absolutely traumatised by this incident and has shown great patience and maturity throughout the investigation.”

 

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Besze, of New Church Road, Hallworth, of Marine Avenue, and Willard, of Hangleton Road, were each sentenced to 27 months in a youth offenders’ institution.

The woman who lured their victim to the workshop was arrested but was deemed not fit to plead and sectioned under the Mental Health Act. She cannot be identified for legal reasons.