Gold Coast man Robert Galleghan jailed over torture of a young woman

ONE of the Gold Coast’s most wanted men has been jailed for eight years for the torture of a young woman who he gagged and imprisoned in a shipping container on a remote property in 2012.

Robert Galleghan. Picture: Facebook

ONE of the Gold Coast’s most wanted men has been jailed for eight years for the torture of a young woman who he gagged and imprisoned in a shipping container on a remote property in 2012.

Robert Galleghan, 33, pleaded guilty to the assault and torture of the then 17-year-old, who police found wired to a trolley on the floor of the container near Tallai.

In 2003 he was named by police as one of the 10 most wanted men on the Coast after a spate of break and enters and vehicle thefts.

Galleghan was on parole for the assault of a police officer when he brutally bashed the teenager. He was 12 years her senior.

The court was yesterday told Galleghan had a history of violence. He was given a six-month suspended sentence for unlawful wounding after he was involved in a samurai sword attack in Nobby Beach, where a man’s hand was sliced open.

On a cocktail of Valium, painkillers and alcohol when he assaulted the woman, the court heard Galleghan subjected her to “physical violence” and “emotional brutality” for close to two hours.

He smashed her head against a table, lifted her 42kg frame up by her hair, headbutted her, kicked her, violently shook her and stomped on her abdomen, telling her “now you won’t have children”.

He threatened to slit her throat before dragging her to a nearby shipping container and wiring her to a trolley.

He then gagged her with her own underwear, wired her mouth shut, poured beer over her and secured a yoga mat over her head with more wire, before leaving her terrified in the darkened container.

When police arrived at the house, he lied and told them she had left with someone else.

He also stopped another man trying to go to her aid during the initial beating and made him leave the property.

Judge David Kent heard the teenager would have been in “relentless” pain.

“(It was) protracted violence in a variety of forms of disablement ... ,” he said.

“I shudder to think what would have happened if the police had just left.”

Galleghan was sentenced to eight years behind bars but will be out by 2021, having served about three years in custody before being sentenced yesterday.