Alysha Aitken
Photo by Lif…
Three men who carved the words “pedo” and “dog” into their victim during an eight-hour torture session have been jailed.
Cameron Gable, 35, was attacked in a North Melbourne unit in October last year after a woman claimed he owed money for drugs.
His assailants Jason Walkley, Phat Tuan Truong and Joshua Bryant-Dawson pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury, false imprisonment and theft.
This morning Supreme Court Justice David Beach said they engaged in terrifying and disgraceful conduct, including trying to cut open Mr Gable’s nostrils and slicing off part of a nipple.
The torture included plunging a knife through Mr Gable’s leg, lighting his hair on fire, carving the words “dog” and “rat” into his back and slicing the word “pedo” into his brow.
The trio also smashed a vase over his head, cut his cheeks and ear, and used scissors to cut open his cheek his mouth.
“The level of aggression shown told me that I wasn’t going to be leaving alive,” Mr Gable said in his victim impact statement.
Justice Beach said although the men had expressed remorse for their crimes, their past crimes did not “fill one with confidence so far as your prospects of rehabilitation are concerned”.
He handed the longest sentence of ten years and three months with a minimum of seven years and three months to Truong, 35, who had a long criminal history.
Justice Beach said he had to take into account the low IQ and possible acquired brain injury suffered by Walkley when he was a teenager.
Walkely, also known as Joshua Jason Manneken, 25, was jailed for nine years and two months with a minimum of six years.
The youngest of the men, Bryant-Dawson, 19, was ordered to serve at least four years of a seven-year term.
First published on Herald Sun True Crime Scene
June 27, 2013
Alysha Aitken 