Lee Platt, 29, and Steven Malcolm, 42, were sentenced at Manchester Crown Court, after admitting to charges of blackmail and receiving stolen goods.

Platt got a two-year sentence and Malcolm got 20 months, after an elaborate ploy to extort money from Coleen Rooney, the wife of Manchester United and England star Wayne. Platt’s girlfriend Jenifer Green, 26, was sentenced to a 12-month community order and 60 hours of unpaid work, after she admitted the charge of assisting in the retention of stolen goods.

In 2010 Platt acquired the memory stick from Coleen’s camera, which had gone missing the MEN Arena in Manchester. The memory stick contained more than 400 pictures, including snaps of the Rooney’s son Kai, their extended family, and their home.

The blackmailers initially rang Manchester United but then decided it would be easier to extort the cash from Coleen. They approached her agent Paul Stretford demanding a figure of £1000 to begin with – then some scandalous stories about the Rooney’s hit the headlines, so the two men upped the figure to £5000.

Stretford was told that if he did not comply with their demands, the two men planned to tout the pictures to the tabloids and gossip magazines. The Sun, Hello! Magazine and The Daily Star were among the publications contacted by Platt & Malcolm with the intention of selling the pictures.

The two men were caught after an elaborate sting operation by the Manchester Police which was set up after Agent Stretford called the police and reported the blackmail attempt. An undercover officer contacted the men and arranged to meet them to exchange cash for the goods in September 2010.

A meeting was arranged at the Marriot Hotel in Manchester, where Malcolm gave the photographs and memory card to the undercover officer anticipating the £5,000 in return, instead he was arrested and taken into custody!

Judge Anthony Gee QC, who sentenced the pair said, “Blackmail is a vile and despicable offence, preying on the vulnerable and causing great distress…The courts must do what can be done to deter such offences.”