A MONEY launderer from Bournemouth who blackmailed a 17-year-old single mum for £15,000 has been jailed for six years.

Peter ‘Pistol Pete’ Kane, 26, phoned Emily Legg, threatening to hurt her and her family unless she paid up by the end of the week, Bournemouth Crown Court heard on Friday.

The young mum, who gave evidence in Kane’s trial, said six months on she still couldn’t sleep at night and got shouted at in the street for being a “grass”.

“Through the worry of giving evidence I don’t sleep well and am woken up by noises at night,” she said in a statement.

“My mum is on tablets. I am frightened to go out and when I do I’m constantly harassed by people who know Pistol Pete.”

Unemployed Kane, who used false references to rent a luxury flat overlooking Boscombe Pier and used a friend to buy an Audi S3, pleaded guilty to six counts of money laundering and one fraud charge shortly before his trial.

Jurors found him guilty of blackmail last November.

A police search of the property uncovered cash, a Rolex, a car and a motorbike, contaminated with cannabis, cocaine and heroin.

Kane’s partner-in-crime, 27-year-old Daniel James Eigenmann, is believed to be in Bali, prosecutor David Richards said. He was sentenced to 18 months in his absence.

Jodi Donworth, from Ringwood Road, in Poole, was given a 10-month suspended sentence for converting criminal property after acting as a front to buy the Audi.

Kane, formerly of Liverpool, had been disqualified from driving so got others to chauffeur him round in a blue sports car.

David Lyons, mitigating, said: “This was not turning up mob-handed, holding the victim prisoner and demanding they do something.”

He added: “At trial, he was in the prosecution’s case portrayed as Bournemouth’s answer to Al Capone.”

Sentencing Kane, Judge John Harrow said the “manipulating” fraudster knew full well his victim couldn’t pay off her boyfriend’s alleged drug debt.

“You threatened to hurt her and her family and clearly she believed you,” Judge Harrow said.

“She was terrified as a result.”

'Individuals will be targeted'

Detective Constable David Baker, based at Bournemouth police station, said after the hearing: “This sentence shows that Dorset Police will target individuals actively involved in criminality and those that threaten to harm and intimidate innocent members of the public.

“They will also target individuals who insist on laundering the proceeds of crime.”

Lee George Harris, 57, of Wilderton Road, in Poole, was given a four month suspended sentence for money laundering.

Kane, who made a living selling knock-off designer clothes and duty-free alcohol and cigarettes, said in a police interview: “I don’t think nothing of the government.

“Why should I give them anything?”

He had also set up the equivalent of a pound shop stall at a Spanish market and got people to post him the euros profit, he claimed.