Two Pakistani-origin men were sentenced to prison for different terms by a British court after they were found guilty of abducting a 21-year-old female relative.
Thirty-two-year-old Abdul Bashir, the woman's brother, and 64-year-old Lal Hussain, her uncle, were convicted of abducting her on March 28 last year and holding her against her will.
The Edinburgh high court judge, Lord Nimmo Smith, told the duo on Tuesday they were guilty of depriving the woman of the freedom to choose how to live her life, and that cultural and religious differences were no excuse.
The duo abducted Abda 'Bibi' Bashir in Dundee and drove her home to Sheffield where she was locked in a bedroom.
She managed to escape after dropping a note from a window begging for help. It was found by a passerby who called the police.
The court was told Abda had been forced into an arranged marriage in Pakistan with a cousin she had never met, and had to abandon her plans to study history at a university to help him get a British visa.
When she returned after a second visit to her husband, she had a row with her parents and decided to leave for her sister's home in Dundee.
Bashir, convicted of abducting her in Dundee, shouting, swearing, threatening to kill her, forcing her into a car, detaining her there against her will and driving her to Sheffield was sentenced to five years.
Hussain, a taxi driver, convicted of an amended charge of abducting, detaining her in the car and driving her to Yorkshire was jailed for two years.
The judge said there was 'no way of telling' what might have happened to her the next day if she had not dropped the note from the window.
The note said: "I need you to urgently call the police. My name is Abda Bashir and I have been kidnapped from Dundee... I know you don't know me and there is no reason for you to help me but please I am begging you, call the police."
