A WOMAN was allegedly detained for 24 hours and tortured in the back shed of a home at Mount Hutton, during which her captors struck her with a hammer, poured boiling water on her head and burnt her with a cigarette, a jury has heard.
The alleged victim was terrified she was going to be killed and wet her pants when one of the kidnappers allegedly held out her arm while another started a grinder "as if she was going to cut off her arm".
She was tied up, had her teeth knocked out and was repeatedly threatened with death, "a lobotomy" or to be injected with drugs before she was dumped near bushland at Eleebana, Crown prosecutor Brendan Queenan told a jury in Newcastle District Court on Wednesday.
Mr Queenan said 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 Kyna McAuley.
Ms McAuley on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to take or detain in company with intent to obtain advantage and occasion actual bodily harm and using an offensive weapon with intent to commit an indictable offence.
She also denied 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.
Ms McAuley and Madden Paynter, who also pleaded not guilty to the kidnapping charge, on Wednesday faced the first day of a trial in Newcastle District Court that will focus on who was present in the back shed at Mount Hutton on May 5 and 6, 2021, when the alleged victim says she was detained and tortured.
Mr Queenan said the alleged victim was under the influence of drugs on May 4, 2021, when she crashed a car that contained Ms McAuley's young daughter.
Ms McAuley was angry, Mr Queenan said, and used a letterbox to smash up a car when the alleged victim returned to her house.
Despite Ms McAuley's frustration, the alleged victim later returned to her house and fell asleep. The next day she claims she was woken up, marched outside to the shed where she says she was detained, assaulted and threatened.
"I will put you in hydrochloric acid and you will die here tonight," Ms McAuley allegedly told the victim.
Defence barrister Russell Boyd used his opening address to tell the jury that the "harrowing things" the alleged victim will say Ms McAuley did to her "are pure embellishment and invention".
The trial continues.
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