Woman in deep shock after kidnap

File photo / NZ Herald

A woman is extremely traumatised after being bound and blindfolded and driven from Auckland to Hamilton by her captors.

She was held in a shed in Hamilton before breaking free without her kidnappers' knowledge and alerting police.

Four people appeared in the Hamilton District Court, each charged with taking the woman without her consent with intent to hold her for ransom.

They are Jaedyn Tenga Kaka, 19, of Hamilton; Linda May Budd, 37, a bar manager, also of Hamilton; John Martin, 19, of no fixed abode; and Hang Mai Thi Phan, 37, of Papatoetoe.

Detective Sergeant Daryl Smith of the Hamilton CIB said the group were arrested after an incident in Nawton yesterday afternoon.

Mr Smith said the victim, who the Herald understands is Vietnamese, had been interviewed by police.

He said initial indications were that between 4am and 5am on Tuesday, the woman was picked up from her Mangere home and taken to a Papatoetoe address.

There she was bound and blindfolded before being driven to Hamilton about 6.30am.

"... it appears our victim had been bound and held against her will in a shed at a Nawton address," he said.

"Some time in the late afternoon, unbeknown to her alleged captors, the woman managed to break free and escape the property and then raised the alarm with police."

A lawyer for Kaka yesterday applied for bail, saying his client was at Budd's home babysitting her children and was asleep when the group showed up at the Vernall St house.

Mr Smith said police were not ruling out more serious charges.