Patrick Pengelly, 26, sentenced to jail for seven-hour torture of victim in Tolland
A man has been sentenced to jail for bashing and using a blowtorch on another man - in between eating pizza and taking drugs - while his victim was locked in a laundry.
The Wagga News
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A Wagga man is now behind bars for subjecting his victim to nearly seven hours of physical torture that left him hospitalised because of an alleged debt of $17,000.
Patrick Pengelly, 26, was sentenced in Wagga District Court on Tuesday to a maximum of five years and seven months’ jail after pleading guilty to specially aggravated kidnapping.
Court documents state about 5.30pm on November 8, 2018, the victim was sitting in his car at Kooringal Mall when Pengelly and a co-accused, Joshua Leota, got in the car with the intention of stealing from him.
The victim was ordered to drive to Tolland after Leota alleged the victim was $17,000 in debt and made numerous suggestions about how he might repay that money.
Once inside the unit, Pengelly struck the victim on the head multiple times and used a blowtorch on him during the six-and-a-half hour ordeal.
At one point, a bowl was placed on the laundry floor and the victim was ordered to get on all fours and drink from it.
The victim was kept inside the laundry while Pengelly, Leota and other occupants of the unit ate pizzas and allegedly consumed prohibited drugs.
The victim pleaded for the ordeal to stop, saying: “Please, please … I’ve had enough, I’m f****d”.
The victim escaped around midnight only after barging through a bedroom window before calling triple zero.
Court documents state he sustained three superficial burns to his back, bruising and swelling to his jaw, and a 3cm cut to his left hand that required stitches.
In his sentencing remarks, Judge Gordon Lerve labelled the offending as degrading acts and said the “fear or terror instilled in the victim is significant”.
“This is particularly so when the use of the blowtorch is considered,” he said.
“The victim’s concern for his own well-being is amply demonstrated by him crashing through a window to escape.”
Crown prosecutor Virginia Morgan had argued the torture, including the use of the blowtorch and making him drink from a bowl, was “gratuitous cruelty”.
Ms Morgan said those specific acts could have had no other purpose than causing further degradation of the victim and to cause him further suffering.
Defence solicitor Bronte Winn said Pengelly was remorseful because of his guilty plea and his acknowledgement of the fear caused to the victim.
Judge Lerve said while he did not find the offending involved gratuitous cruelty, the ordeal was “very degrading and would have been terrifying”.
“On balance on the material, I was unable to find remorse, good prospects of rehabilitation and unlikely to re-offend,” he said.
“The situation is not hopeless. I observe that rehabilitation is rarely successful on the first attempt. The offender is still a relatively young man.”
In his sentencing, Judge Lerve also took into account one charge of take and drive conveyance without the owner’s consent.
Pengelly was sentenced to six months’ jail for driving while disqualified to which he pleaded guilty.
Both of the driving offences were in relation to Pengelly stealing a car on the morning after the victim had escaped.
With a non-parole period of three years and eight months and having been in custody since December 2018, Pengelly will be eligible for early release in August 2022.
Co-accused Leota is set to face court on May 4 for his alleged role.