A man who kept his flatmate on a leash during a five-month "sadistic" ordeal has been sentenced to seven years' jail.
The Hamilton District Court was told yesterday that Major Wilson, 35, took an 18-year-old man in as a boarder to help work on his Morrinsville farm and then subjected him to months of cruelty which Judge Robert Spear described as close to torture.
The victim escaped only after his mother visited the farm and convinced him to leave. He was immediately taken to hospital.
Wilson was convicted on charges of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, theft, assault with intent to injure, using a document and two charges each of common assault, threatening to kill and injuring with intent to injure.
The judge said the beatings began after the two had been drinking at a hotel. They became a daily occurrence, with Wilson treating the man as a punching bag.
During one incident at the milking shed, apparently as punishment for taking too long to clean up, Wilson hosed the man down before repeatedly hitting him with a hammer and then jumping on his head with steel-capped boots. He left him lying unconscious.
"I'm astonished you did not kill him", Judge Spear said.
The judge said that Wilson later ordered the man to wear a dog collar, pulling him around the house and punching him as he went.
He then took him out to the road and made him stand there. He let the man remove the collar the next day.
"If there is any offending that suggests that you have a sadistic streak in you it is that offending," the judge said.
Wilson cut off the man's independence. He took the man's cashflow card and withdrew $2655 for his personal use.
When the man's mother sent him a cellphone, Wilson confiscated it.
Wilson had 61 previous convictions and has been jailed on 13 different occasions.
He admitted the charges only after his victim gave evidence at a preliminary hearing.
Judge Spear said he doubted Wilson had any real remorse.
- NZPA
Seven years' jail for sadistic treatment of farm boarder
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.