Sadists jailed for sex torture

6:10am Tuesday 23rd October 2007

Two sadists laughed out loud after carving noughts and crosses on a woman's naked body with a kitchen knife, a court heard.

She screamed in agony during the sick game of torture that started a harrowing 12-hour ordeal of sex and violence.

Bradford Crown Court heard how she was punched in the face, sexually assaulted, raped and beaten with a belt.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told her abusers, Kerry John Farebrother and Charles Frederick Collins, both of Lustre Street, Keighley, they were guilty of "a catalogue of evil".

"It was an appalling, degrading, humiliating and sadistic attack for a prolonged period, without mercy," the judge said.

He branded Farebrother, 21, "an almost inevitable risk to women".

He said he had "an evil temperament" and sexual sadism played a significant role in motivating his behaviour.

The judge locked Farebrother up indefinitely for the protection of the public.

He said a normal custody sentence would have been "approaching 20 years".

It would be six years before Farebrother was even considered for release and it was highly unlikely he would be out for "many, many years", said Judge Durham Hall.

Collins, 45, was jailed for nine years.

Both pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to unlawful wounding, assault by penetration and causing their victim actual bodily harm. Farebrother admitted raping her.

The court heard the pair attacked the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on her 41st birthday.

Judge Durham Hall, who saw photographs of the woman after she was beaten and violated, said she was unrecognisable.

A doctor stated he had rarely seen such extensive injuries.

Judge Durham Hall said he himself was shocked by the case.

"I thought I'd seen it all - but this beats it all," he told the defendants.

The judge said the men carved noughts and crosses "slowly and meticulously" on their victim's back.

The next day, after spending it drinking and taking drugs they set about her again in a "harrowing and prolonged attack".

Farebrother violated her with a broom handle while Collins put his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams.

The judge said the "systematic and deliberate torture" in March this year had ruined the woman's life.

Prosecutor Mark McKone said Collins, who had a small kitchen knife, laughed as the men first attacked the woman.

Mr McKone said Collins told Farebrother Let's play noughts and crosses, look what I've got'.

The barrister said Farebrother held the woman down while Collins cut her back. He handed the knife to Farebrother who also wounded her.

The woman was screaming and pleading for them to stop. In the morning, both men laughed again about what they had done, Mr McKone said.

Later that day, Farebrother, who went out to buy alcohol and ecstasy tablets, came back in a bad mood.

He punched the woman in the face twice and put his hands round her throat. He ordered her to strip and get down on her knees.

Farebrother called her abusive names as he violated and raped her.

Both men then punched and kicked her and she told police she was beaten with a belt.

The court heard a belt stained with her blood was found by officers at the scene, along with a blood stained kitchen knife.

Mr McKone told the court Collins said: "She is 41 today, give her 41 lashes".

A neighbour called the police when she heard the woman's screams and officers broke down the door.

They found the woman semi-naked with her face, swollen, cut and bruised.

Her body was bruised and she had a noughts and crosses game cut on to her back.

Nikki Peers, for Farebrother, said a head injury when he was a toddler changed his behaviour. His aggression had been increased and worsened by substance abuse.

A psychiatrist found him emotionally unstable. He was epileptic with a history of self harm.

Miss Peers said Farebrother did not accept he used a belt on the woman.

Stephen Wood, for Collins, said he had a dependant personality disorder that made him unusually compliant and a long-standing drug and alcohol abuse problem.

Collins did not present a high risk to others and would not have committed the "singularly awful offences" without Farebrother.

After the case, Sheila Aldridge, District Crown Prosecutor at West Yorkshire Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Farebrother and Collins put this woman through an appalling and horrific ordeal. The court heard of the levels of sexual and physical violence and torture that the victim endured in her own home.

"That two individuals could subject a defenceless woman to such sustained and extreme violence is beyond belief.

"The Crown Prosecution Service would like to pay tribute to the victim in this case for her courage and strength in supporting us to present to the court the shocking facts of this case.

Our thoughts are now with her as she rebuilds her life following this vicious attack."

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