DRIFTING in and out of consciousness after being struck in the head in the back shed of a home at Mount Hutton, an alleged torture victim claims she heard the whistle of a kettle before feeling "indescribable pain".
The woman on Thursday gave evidence in the trial of two of her accused captors, Kyna McAuley and Madden Paynter, telling a jury she was repeatedly assaulted and threatened, tied up, struck in the head with something hard, had her teeth knocked out, burnt with a cigarette and had boiling water poured over her head during the 24 hours she was held in the shed in Kestrel Avenue in May, 2021.
The alleged victim was terrified she was going to be killed and wet her pants when Mr Paynter allegedly pinned her down and held out her arm while Ms McAuley started a grinder and approached "as if she was going to cut off her arm".
"She had said: "take her arms off"," the alleged victim said of Ms McAuley. "I thought she was going to cut my arm off and I peed my pants, urinated in my pants because I was so scared. "[The grinder] was close and then all of a sudden it just stopped."
The alleged victim claims Mr Paynter let her go, but Ms McAuley then said: "You know if you pour boiling hot water on someone's head it will just run off. But if you pour coffee on them it will stick and continue to burn. Does anyone want a coffee?"
She said she thought it was Mr Paynter who went and got a kettle and she heard it whistle and click before seeing Ms McAuley's boots in front of her face.
"Then I just felt this indescribable pain as I felt the boiling hot water being tipped onto my head," the alleged victim said. "It ran down into my ear. I was just crying. I could feel being burnt. "I believe I urinated in my pants again from the shock."
The alleged victim claims she told Ms McAuley she was bleeding from her ears and was going to die and Ms McAuley responded by telling the other captors to get a tarp "because I don't want her to bleed everywhere".
The alleged victim said she sat on a chair on the tarp and over the next few hours she would pass out and be woken up. She claims at one point she was burnt on the forehead with a cigarette and could hear her skin sizzle and at another time had two of her teeth knocked out with a metal object.
During his opening address on Wednesday, Crown prosecutor Brendan Queenan told the jury the prosecution case was the kidnapping and assault stemmed from a minor car accident that the alleged victim had while driving around the young daughter of Ms McAuley.
The woman admitted on Thursday that she took a Xanax tablet before the crash and said she must have fallen asleep behind the wheel. She was later charged with driving with an illicit drug present in her blood.
Ms McAuley was angry about the crash, the jury heard, and used a letterbox to smash up a car containing the alleged victim when she returned from the police station.
She left but despite being warned not to go back to the house in Kestrel Avenue, the alleged victim later walked from Merewether to Mount Hutton, let herself in and fell asleep.
She said she was woken by Ms McAuley striking her with a children's toy and ordering her to get up and go outside to the shed.
"I knew instantly I had made a mistake," the alleged victim said during her evidence. "I should not have come here."
She claims she was then detained and repeatedly assaulted for about 24 hours before she was dumped near bushland at Eleebana.
Ms McAuley and Mr Paynter have pleaded not guilty to a charge of take or detain in company with intent to obtain advantage and occasion actual bodily harm in relation to the kidnapping and Ms McAuley has also denied injecting the alleged victim with a blood-filled syringe in relation to an earlier incident.
She also pleaded not guilty to another charge of influencing a witness relating to messages she sent a co-accused that the prosecution say were intended to get him to change his story.
Defence barrister Russell Boyd used his opening address on Wednesday to tell the jury that the "harrowing things" the alleged victim says Ms McAuley did to her "are pure embellishment and invention".
The trial continues.
Find out how to register or become a subscriber here.
