Man jailed for 'sadistic' abuse

Published on Tuesday 15 September 2009 19:53

A MAN was jailed for eight and a half years yesterday for an "appalling" catalogue of sadistic abuse against a woman.

Ryan Longstaff, 34, had told his victim he was going to have some fun with her before he killed her, and made her beg for her life in a game of "live or die".

He beat and indecently assaulted the woman, 29, and struck her with a hammer and a knife. At the end of her ordeal, she had 35 injuries.

A background report said that Longstaff, a drug addict, of Port Seton, East Lothian, had shown no genuine remorse for his "sadistic violence".

Sentencing Longstaff at the High Court in Edinburgh, Lord Uist said: "It is no exaggeration to say these crimes, which involved sustained humiliation and degradation of your victim, amounted to the most appalling abuse and cruelty.

"Anyone who listened to her evidence could not have been anything other than horrified by your conduct."

At an earlier trial, a jury cleared Longstaff of two rape charges, but convicted him of attempting to murder the woman in September last year. She told the court that Longstaff "flipped" after taking pills, and punched and kicked and bit her.

She said: "He threw me into a freezing cold bath… he was holding my head under the water. He did that at least 30 times. He tortured me in that bath for at least an hour. He made me beg for my life."

Longstaff indecently assaulted the woman and rubbed aftershave into her cuts and eyes. "He said he was going to have some fun with me before he killed me," she added.

Lord Uist put Longstaff on the sex offenders register, and ordered that he be supervised for four years at the end of the prison sentence.