KYNA McAuley has been found guilty of detaining and torturing a young woman in the back shed of her home at Mount Hutton, a jury left with no doubt she was present while the victim was being assaulted, terrorised and threatened.
The victim gave evidence earlier in the trial of two of her then accused captors, McAuley and Madden Paynter, telling the jury she was repeatedly assaulted and threatened, tied up, struck in the head with something hard, had her teeth knocked out, burnt with a cigarette and had boiling water poured over her head during the 24 hours she was held in the shed in Kestrel Avenue in May, 2021.
The victim was terrified she was going to be killed and wet her pants when someone pinned her down and held out her arm while McAuley started a grinder and approached "as if she was going to cut off her arm".
"She had said: "take her arms off"," the victim said of McAuley. "I thought she was going to cut my arm off and I peed my pants, urinated in my pants because I was so scared. "[The grinder] was close and then all of a sudden it just stopped."
The three-week trial focused on what exactly happened inside the shed on May 5 and 6, 2021, and who was present, with both McAuley and Mr Paynter claiming they were not involved and not in the shed while the victim was being detained.
And on Tuesday, after deliberating for a little less than two days, the jury returned and found McAuley guilty of detaining and assaulting the victim as well as later attempting to influencing a witness in the case.
McAuley was acquitted of allegedly stabbing the same victim in the face with a blood-filled syringe in the months before the abduction.
While Mr Paynter walked free from the dock after he was acquitted of any involvement in the abduction and torture.
McAuley remains behind bars and will be sentenced in October.
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