A FATHER was kidnapped and attacked after failing to pay an alleged drug debt, a court heard.

Joshua Smith claimed he was bundled into the back of a car and held hostage by two men, who he said punched his ribcage and goaded a dog into biting his buttock.

Co-accused defendants Lewis Heaver and Theodore Tyrell appeared at Oxford Crown Court yesterday, where prosecutors divulged details of a ‘terrifying ordeal’ that they both deny.

Prosecutor Matthew Walsh told the court: “Mr Smith owed Mr Tyrell £185 – there is no dispute about that. It was a debt to do with drugs. Together, they tried to get that money by any means necessary.

“They subjected [him] to a terrifying ordeal.”

He said the pair bumped into Mr Smith as he was exiting a shop in Wood Farm, Oxford, shortly before 7pm on August 28 last year.

Remembering Mr Smith owed him cash, 26-year-old Tyrell demanded he get into his Volkswagen Golf and forced him when he refused, Mr Walsh told the court.

He said they drove around East Oxford while threatening him, making various pit stops including when Tyrell dashed into his own home in Barns Road and returned with a utility knife.

Mr Walsh added: “They assaulted him, punched him. There was a dog in the car, which they set on him. They talked about forcing him to rob a shop or rob another drug dealer to get the money.

“They said if he didn’t comply, they would take him to Didcot where a man would violate him. They said if he tried to get out and run away, they would run him over.

“Both accept being in the car, but say they there were no threats or violence.”

The court was presented with texts from Mr Smith’s phone during the car journey, in which he frantically tried to get help from several people including his mum.

He repeatedly urged his girlfriend to ring him and begged her to lend him the cash, telling her he was in a car with a man he owned money and feared he was about to get ‘stabbed’ and ‘f***ked up’.

Mr Smith was not present in court, having declined to be cross-examined, but his witness statements were read to the jury. In one, he said he told Tyrell he was homeless with no money, and would not rob a shop as he did not want to risk losing his son.

He said Tyrell stopped the car in Littlemore where both defendants punched him in the ribcage, then a dog that was in the car bit his buttock.

Tyrell also stopped near Cowley Road and went to get a KFC, Mr Smith said.

Eventually he tricked his alleged captors into allowing him into T R Stores in Littlemore, telling them he was meeting a drug dealer to rob.

Instead he successfully pleaded with staff to ring 999. The shopkeeper rang police at 8.20pm and noted he was in a ‘’distressed’ state and was clutching his bottom.

Police statements described how officers found Mr Smith cowering behind a display in the shop, ‘shaking like a leaf’ wearing ripped trousers.

The defendants are also accused of stealing two iPhones from Mr Smith, which were recovered by police from Tyrell’s car.

Both Tyrell and 24-year-old Heaver, of West Street in Banbury, pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault by beating and theft. The trial continues.