A serial domestic abuser who subjected a West Lothian female victim to a terrifying waterboard-style torture has been jailed for five years.
Violent Charles Arthurs dumped his victim in the bath and sat on top of her, crushing her chest before trying to drown her.
The drunken brute hosed her face with the shower head filling her mouth and nostrils with water so that she choked.
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As she gasped for air he repeatedly punched her and banged her head off the bath knocking her unconscious, a court heard.
She came round lying on his bed, battered and bruised with her hair and clothing still soaking and blue tape binding her ankles together.
Desperate to escape, the woman opened a window and leapt to the ground five feet below before sprinting barefoot to a nearby hotel to seek help.
Receptionists at the Mercure Hotel in Livingston, told how she ran in with her face black and blue and bleeding heavily from a head wound. She breathlessly blurted out: “He was trying to kill me!”
One receptionist said she had told her Arthurs had been drowning her in the bath and she had banged her head. Crying and panicking she added: “I got away. He was trying to kill me.”
Police who arrived quickly at the scene said her fingernails were broken and she was "in a state of complete distress” and appeared to be in shock.
The jury was shown CCTV from the hotel foyer showing her limping, with the tape – identical to a roll later found in the accused’s bedroom – wrapped around one of her ankles.
Police outside spoke to a man acting suspiciously in bushes near the hotel. It was Arthurs, bare chested under his jacket with the knuckles of his hands red and swollen and scratches on his face.
He claimed he was at the hotel to meet an escort but quoted a non-existent room number which "rang alarm bells" with the receptionists dealing with him.
A member of the hotel staff asked her if he was her attacker and she confirmed it was. Arthurs was arrested.
Giving evidence in court the woman said she believed she was going to die as a result of the sustained, violent attack on her.
Following her traumatic ordeal in Arthurs’ flat in Livingston, on May 4 and 5, 2022, she had to undergo hospital treatment for a life-threatening collapsed lung.
She also suffered a severe injury to the back of her head where he had torn out clumps of her hair while dragging her backwards through his home.
Strands of similar coloured hair were later found on the keyring Arthurs used for his house keys.
Giving evidence during his trial at Livingston Sheriff Court, the woman said the day of the attack had started with her cooking him sausages for breakfast before he gave her a hug and went to the shops to buy alcohol and spaghetti carbonara.
She said: “We were listening to music. I had a vodka. It was like the whole day just went so fast.
“When I went to get a second drink there was quite a lot out of the bottle and at maybe 5pm or 6pm his mood changed. When he has a couple of drinks he goes into different moods.
“He was argumentative and very angry. He was texting men from my phone saying if anybody got back to me saying I’d spoken to them he was going to get really angry with me.
“He told me that he was speaking to my daughter and they were arguing on the phone for a while.”
After that, she said, she told Arthurs that she was going back to her own home.
“He said that wasn’t going to happen, I was not going home. He said he was going to kill me.
“He was so angry his eyes popped out of his head. He actually dragged me into the bathroom by the back of the hair.
“I told him if he didn’t leave me alone I was going to scream the place down so the neighbours would hear.”
She went on: “I just remember waking up in the bath saying ‘What are you doing? Get off me!
“He was sitting on top of me putting the shower hose on me. I felt as if I was drowning.
“There was water going in my face and him sitting on top of me. He’s quite a heavy boy and I’m quite thin.
“I was soaking I don’t know whether I got in the bath or he knocked me out. That’s the honest truth.
“All I can remember after that is waking up on the bed and I think that was hours later.
I woke up and jumped out of the window.
“I don’t remember anything else of what happened that night. I don’t know if I got concussion or whatever. It wasn’t till I got to hospital that I knew my head was bleeding.”
Explaining the gaps in her recollection of events, depute fiscal Roshni Joshi told jurors: “She blacked out and she blocked out. She didn’t want to look at photos of her injuries, didn’t look in mirror in hospital.
“Her memory of this traumatic assault and abduction is something she’s tried to block out.”
Arthurs, 54, a prisoner at Addiewell, was charged with pursuing her in his house, locking his door, retaining the key, and pulling her backwards to prevent her leaving before detaining her against her will.
He was accused of binding her legs together with tape restricting her movement, and assaulting her by straddling her, repeatedly striking her on the head and body and pushing her into a bath tub.
There, the Crown alleged, he sat on her while she was in the bath and poured water over her head and body causing her difficulty breathing.
The indictment said he also struck her head on the bath causing her to lose consciousness, all to her severe injury and to the danger of her life.
He denied the allegations but the jury took just over an hour to return a majority verdict finding him guilty as charged.
The fiscal revealed that Arthurs already had “an extremely lengthy and concerning record” which included 12 previous convictions for domestically aggravated offences.
He was also subject to a non-harassment order barring him from approaching or contacting the woman.
Sheriff Jane Farquharson told Arthurs: “There must be a lengthy custodial sentence attached to this extremely serious crime.”
In addition to jailing him for five years she said he would remain on licence and under supervision and subject to social work supervision for a further five years following his release.
In addition she imposed a lifetime non harassment order banning him from ever approaching or contacting her again.
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