However Glen Russell Gibson did not walk free from Dubbo District Court after the verdict, as he was sentenced to jail for two bag snatches.

The prosecution alleged the kidnapping occurred as 20-year-old Mr Gibson and another man fled the scene of the bag snatches.

Mr Gibson admitted his involvement in the bag snatches.

However after a two-day trial the jury decided they were not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt he held a knife to the throat of Nigel Broomham and forced him to drive a getaway car from the Tamworth Street Shops where Mr Gibson and his friend Dennis “Chubby” Wilson stole purses from two female shoppers.

Mr Broomham testified to the court on Wednesday that he drove Mr Gibson and two other men to the shops early in the afternoon of January 1 where Mr Gibson and Mr Wilson got out and snatched the wallets, containing $30 and $70.

When they returned to the car demanding a speedy getaway the driver said he questioned the men. “That was when a knife was put to my throat,” he told the court.

However Mr Gibson and Mr Wilson gave a different version of events, stating there was never a knife produced and Mr Broomham had agreed to give them a lift in return for heroin.

The jury was retired to consider their verdict at 10.26am yesterday.

At 11.20am they announced a unanimous verdict had been reached.

Mr Gibson sat passively in the dock as the jury foreperson announced he had been found not guilty.

Later, as Judge Robert Woods considered what sentence to impose for the bag snatches, Mr Gibson told the court he wanted to change his ways.

The court was told the prisoner had learning difficulties from a young age, had sniffed petrol for six years and been a heroin addict from the age of 15.

He served two jail sentences last year and was released little more than one month before the bag snatches.

“You have to obey the rules or we start to throw the book at people like you,” the judge remarked.

Mr Gibson said he was “sick of being locked up”.

“I can do better for myself,” he told the judge.

“I just want to do (learn) some reading and writing (skills) and have some counselling.”

His defence counsel Eric Wilson told the court his client had received no formal education since Year 4.

“Which is a terrible position for any young man to find himself in,” Mr Wilson said.

“I have considered your history, and how things have got as bad as they are,” Judge Woods said in handing down the sentence.

“I am satisfied there are special circumstances that allow me to go a bit easier on you than the community and the law (normally) require.

“Normally you should be going to jail for at least two years.”

Mr Gibson was sentenced to 16 months in prison with an eight-month non-parole period.