A self-confessed sadist who "lured" two "vulnerable" young adults to his flat where he forced them to wear collars and tags while he subjected them to months of rape, flogging and abuse has been told he faces many years in jail.
Scott Lannister, 34, who described himself as one of the Britain's biggest "puppy masters", attracted recruits from throughout the UK and sent them tickets to travel to Stirling to live with him as "house pets".
They had to call him "master" and lived as dogs.
The High Court in Stirling heard that a young autistic person, who completed his "pack registration form" online and moved up from England to be with him, was beaten by him with a studded leather flogger called "The Scorpion", slept in a dog bed in a cupboard, and forced to wear a neoprene puppy mask and a padlocked collar when out for "walks" in the city and in Glasgow.
They also wore a clip-on fuzzy tail. They said they "initially felt happy and care-free living as a puppy", but Lannister began to kick them with steel toe-capped boots, and repeatedly raped them, "as a form of punishment".
A video seized by police and played in court was described as showing "in graphic detail the person's pain and distress, as chained and with a mask on, they were flogged by Lannister to the breasts and buttocks".
Eventually Lannister put a noose round their neck attached to the ceiling and kicked away a stool they were standing on. The victim blacked out, and woke up with one of their eyes swollen shut.
Lannister claimed they had been doing "extreme breath play" and when he had been unable to get the rope off, he had to cut it, resulting in them falling forwards and smashing their face on the floor.
Their injuries were so distressing that a man who saw their face when delivering pizzas to Lannister's "dirty, cluttered flat" called police immediately.
The court heard the victim, only 21 now, stopped living with him that month, June 2020, after 10 months as his "house pet".
They were soon replaced, however, by another vulnerable, autistic victim, then aged 26, who moved from London to Lannister's flat in Mayfield Court, Stirling, after Lannister paid for his ticket, met him at the train station, and immediately fitted him with a collar and tag.
Giving evidence via video link, he said: "I met him on an app called Telegram. He just offered and I had nothing better to do." He said Lannister "started off really nice" but then began being "very aggressive".
He said Lannister forced him to wear a dog collar and a pup mask "pretty much 24/7", and would grab him by the collar and forced him to have sex with him without consent.
He said once he had suffered and epileptic fit and woke up to find Lannister carrying out such an act. He said Lannister had whipped his scrotum with a leather flail and hit him with a cane about three times a week.
On one occasion, Lannister used a scalpel blade attached to a chopstick to carve AD -- for "Amber Dragon", a nickname -- into his back. The man said he had consented the "obviously painful branding" because he was so scared.
Both victims said Lannister, described as "long term medically unemployed", had made them turn over their benefit money to him. He used some of it to take a "pup" on a trip to Latvia in 2020.
Police who searched Lannister's flat recovered surgical blades, more than 20 dog collars and leads, three "floggers", a wooden baton, metal chains, rubber dog masks, a large padded dog crate, dog beds, and dog tags.
Prosecutor John Keenan KC said Lannister "lured people to his house in Stirling because he knew they were vulnerable, and then when he'd got them there he abused them and raped them".
After a six day trial which ended late on Thursday, jurors took just 90 minutes to find Lannister guilty of all the charges against him - three charges of rape and two of domestic abuse. He had denied the offences and claimed his victims were into BDSM and had consented.
Mr Keenan asked Lannister at one point, "You said you treated a 'pup' just like a real dog - that you loved them like you'd love a dog. Does that involve beating your dog?" Lannister replied, "No, a dog can't consent."
Judge Lord Scott deferred sentence for reports until March 16th at the High Court in Aberdeen and ordered that Lannister, who showed no emotion, should continue remanded.
He also ordered he should be placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely, and warned him: "A custodial sentence of some length is inevitable."
Lannister's counsel Bert Kerrigan KC reserved mitigation. The court heard Lannister had previously been jailed for four years at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2007, for sexual offences against children.
During the trial, Lannister gave evidence in his own defence. He said he "enjoyed the process of dominating someone". He said: "Just as a masochist enjoys receiving pain for pleasure, a sadist enjoys giving pain for pleasure."
He claimed "pup play" was "a more unusual and niche lifestyle element" and "part of the plus in LGBTQ+". He said members of his "pack" became "collared or owned when they formed a master/pet relationship" with him and if living with him would have to "open doors and do other such tasks in a manner befitting their position".
Asked about the dog tags and collars found in his home, he said: "I almost always put the collar on in the train station or in the airport or wherever I meet the pup for the first time. A tag is akin to a wedding ring or engagement ring in a relationship of a normal description."
He said the large cage found in his flat was "just another piece of kink gear". He said: "Pups like things like cages - it draws them in."
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