Bahumat
FH is my second home
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- Jun 22, 2004
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Can anyone explain (apologies if I misundertstood the article) how someone who does this gets a 10 year sentence, then it's immediately halved, but she only has to serve 3 years before she is let out?
Three tortured shed captive until he died - Times Online
From The Times July 10, 2007
Three tortured shed captive until he died
Simon de Bruxelles
A man died after being kept prisoner in a shed for four months and treated like a dog, a court was told yesterday.
Kevin Davies, 29, was beaten daily and forced to eat potato peelings while his captors used his benefit money to pay off a debt that they claimed he owed them. His ordeal came to light when he collapsed and paramedics found that his body was malnourished and covered in injuries.
The three people who kept him prisoner and tortured him until his death at their home in Bream, Gloucestershire, were given long jail sentences at Bristol Crown Court. David Lehane, 35, and his girlfriend Amanda Baggus, 26, were each sentenced to ten years. A friend, Scott Andrews, also 26, was jailed for nine years.
The court was told that Mr Davies was locked in the shed after overturning a Reliant Robin car that belonged to Lehane and Baggus. During his imprisonment Mr Davies, who was severely epileptic, was forced to make a videotaped “confession” in which he thanked his captors for treating him well.
Police arrested the three on suspicion of murder after finding the video and a diary that detailed the abuse.
Murder charges were dropped because prosecutors were unable to prove that Mr Davies’s epilepsy did not contribute to his death. All three defendants pleaded guilty to assault and false imprisonment.
Judge Charles Gray told them: “The treatment Kevin Davies was subjected to at your hands was truly horrendous and completely inhumane. Your victim was vulnerable and gullible and you befriended him when he was down on his luck.
“You helped yourselves to his money and you imprisoned him in a shed. There was joint responsibility for what happened.”
Ian Pringle, for the prosecution, said that the last few weeks of Mr Davies’s life “must have been miserable and completely inhumane”. He said: “He had been abused, he had been assaulted and he had been beaten. He had been kept like a dog and locked in a shed at night.”
Mr Davies had been a longstanding friend of Lehane, a landscape gardener, and helped him with odd jobs. He was imprisoned after he damaged the car in May last year. Mr Pringle said: “It seems Amanda Baggus felt Kevin Davies owed her money and that was a good enough reason to keep him at their address, where she would help herself to his social security money to pay household bills and debts.”
Baggus recorded the abuse in a diary. One entry, dated August 5, said: “He was playing up last nite, banging in the shed. So later that nite both Scott and Dave hit Prick until quite late, cause Prick made a load of shouting.”
Paramedics were called to the house on September 26, where they found Mr Davies unconscious. Mr Pringle said that there was extensive bruising and burn marks that a pathologist said could have been caused by a hot knife. Bloodstains were found in the garden shed, the kitchen, the lounge and on a wooden pole used to beat him.
After the hearing, Chief Inspector Jeff Brookes, of Gloucestershire Constabulary, who led the investigation, said: “This is possibly the worst case of mental and physical abuse I have ever seen.”
Elizabeth James, Mr Davies’s mother, said: “I just can’t believe that anybody could be so cruel. It just seems unreal. I just don’t know how they got away with it for so long.”
Three tortured shed captive until he died - Times Online
From The Times July 10, 2007
Three tortured shed captive until he died
Simon de Bruxelles
A man died after being kept prisoner in a shed for four months and treated like a dog, a court was told yesterday.
Kevin Davies, 29, was beaten daily and forced to eat potato peelings while his captors used his benefit money to pay off a debt that they claimed he owed them. His ordeal came to light when he collapsed and paramedics found that his body was malnourished and covered in injuries.
The three people who kept him prisoner and tortured him until his death at their home in Bream, Gloucestershire, were given long jail sentences at Bristol Crown Court. David Lehane, 35, and his girlfriend Amanda Baggus, 26, were each sentenced to ten years. A friend, Scott Andrews, also 26, was jailed for nine years.
The court was told that Mr Davies was locked in the shed after overturning a Reliant Robin car that belonged to Lehane and Baggus. During his imprisonment Mr Davies, who was severely epileptic, was forced to make a videotaped “confession” in which he thanked his captors for treating him well.
Police arrested the three on suspicion of murder after finding the video and a diary that detailed the abuse.
Murder charges were dropped because prosecutors were unable to prove that Mr Davies’s epilepsy did not contribute to his death. All three defendants pleaded guilty to assault and false imprisonment.
Judge Charles Gray told them: “The treatment Kevin Davies was subjected to at your hands was truly horrendous and completely inhumane. Your victim was vulnerable and gullible and you befriended him when he was down on his luck.
“You helped yourselves to his money and you imprisoned him in a shed. There was joint responsibility for what happened.”
Ian Pringle, for the prosecution, said that the last few weeks of Mr Davies’s life “must have been miserable and completely inhumane”. He said: “He had been abused, he had been assaulted and he had been beaten. He had been kept like a dog and locked in a shed at night.”
Mr Davies had been a longstanding friend of Lehane, a landscape gardener, and helped him with odd jobs. He was imprisoned after he damaged the car in May last year. Mr Pringle said: “It seems Amanda Baggus felt Kevin Davies owed her money and that was a good enough reason to keep him at their address, where she would help herself to his social security money to pay household bills and debts.”
Baggus recorded the abuse in a diary. One entry, dated August 5, said: “He was playing up last nite, banging in the shed. So later that nite both Scott and Dave hit Prick until quite late, cause Prick made a load of shouting.”
Paramedics were called to the house on September 26, where they found Mr Davies unconscious. Mr Pringle said that there was extensive bruising and burn marks that a pathologist said could have been caused by a hot knife. Bloodstains were found in the garden shed, the kitchen, the lounge and on a wooden pole used to beat him.
After the hearing, Chief Inspector Jeff Brookes, of Gloucestershire Constabulary, who led the investigation, said: “This is possibly the worst case of mental and physical abuse I have ever seen.”
Elizabeth James, Mr Davies’s mother, said: “I just can’t believe that anybody could be so cruel. It just seems unreal. I just don’t know how they got away with it for so long.”
