Matthew Leuthwaite jailed for south coast prison bashing

A man who kidnapped a young disabled woman and tortured her for more than eight hours, before she was thrown off a bridge and left for dead, has gotten into more trouble behind bars.

Locked up for violent crimes against a disabled woman, a male prisoner has been getting into more trouble behind bars.

Matthew Leuthwaite bashed a fellow inmate in the South Coast Correctional Centre over a ‘pest’ jibe, gaining the help of other prisoners to lure his victim away from correctional officers and CCTV to seek his revenge for the “insult”.

Facts tendered to the court said the 24-year-old was “annoying” the victim in Section 2 of the prison on August 6 last year, when the man asked him to “go away” and “stop being pests”.

Taking offence to the word pest, because of its connotation with the paedophile, according to police facts, Leuthwaite demanded the victim buy them a “small treat” as an apology, but he refused.

Luring the victim to the bathroom area of the jail, he ran toward the victim, who put his hands up to protect himself.

Matthew Leuthwaite has gotten into more trouble behind bars, after being sentenced to a lengthy jail sentence for violent crime against a disabled woman.

Leuthwaite punched him in the face, and the victim fell to the ground with blurred vision. While on the ground, the man was kicked in the face.

The men left the bathroom, with the victim speaking to correctional officers to report the assault and injuries. He was taken to Shoalhaven Hospital for treatment, before being transferred to Wollongong Hospital for attention on a facial fracture.

Leuthwaite was charged over the assault, pleading guilty in Nowra Local Court to one charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Magistrate Lisa Viney said his record “did not assist” him, adding: “The reason you are serving a jail term is for a violent offence”.

She sentenced the inmate to 18 months in jail. But, it was backdated to the date of the offence, and is to run concurrently with the sentence he is already serving, meaning he won’t spend any extra time behind bars.

After kidnapping a young disabled woman who was tied to a chair and and torturing for more than eight hours, before she was thrown off Windsor Bridge and left for dead, Leuthwaite was jailed until at least November 2022. 

In that instance, he put his victim through hours of physical and mental abuse after she was forced into the boot of a car in Rosemeadow and driven to a home in Whalan in 2018.

At one point, Leuthwaite hit her with a 40cm wooden bat and choked her until she lost consciousness.

The victim suffered a string of injuries, including multiple stab wounds, burns, swelling to the head and extensive bruising to her face.

He was sentenced to a non-parole period of seven years and six months for the crime.