Woman's 48 hour torture hell at Leeds house after Twitter romance

A woman was tortured and subjected to horrific violence lasting two days after moving in with a man she met on Twitter.
David Griffiths.David Griffiths.
David Griffiths.

A court heard the victim was repeatedly whipped, strangled, punched, kicked and stamped upon during her ordeal at the house in Leeds.

David Griffiths made the victim’s suffering worse by subjecting her to ‘mind games’ including threatening to burn her face with a soldering iron.

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Her ordeal finally ended when she managed to run from the house on Northcote Green, Beeston, to raise the alarm.

Leeds Crown Court heard that two thirds of the woman’s body and face were covered in bruises and she had to be given morphine when she was taken to hospital.

Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, said: “It was not possible to analyse the number of injuries because there were so many.”

Griffiths, 47, was given a 12 year extended sentence after pleading guilty to wounding with intent.

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The court heard the victim moved from Birmingham to live with Griffiths earlier this year after meeting him on social media.

Griffiths began the attack on May 8 after they had a disagreement about what to watch on television.

The woman later told police: “He flew into a rage and hit and punched me in the head 50 times.

“He said I was going to die and he was going to kill me and it was either me or him.”

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The woman was strangled with computer cables and struck repeatedly on the head with the edge of a mobile phone and a mug, causing multiple cuts.

The victim had her wrist cut with a kitchen knife, was whipped more than 30 times “like a dog” and had jugs of water thrown over her.

She was also kicked and stamped to the head and ribs.

The prosecutor said Griffiths engaged in mind games with the woman.

Mr Sharp said: “He would make her prepare food for him, saying he was starving, and as soon as she did he threw it against the wall and said ‘I’m not going to eat that because you made it.’”

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He also threatened to kill her cat and make her watch as he did it.

The woman managed to run off at one stage but Griffiths caught her and “smashed her against a wall.”

She eventually managed to escape around 10pm on May 10 when she ran to a house nearby.

Police were called and went to Griffiths’s home. He told officers: “I didn’t mean to do it.”

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He said he had carried out the attack after taking large amounts of amphetamines and skunk cannabis.

Simon Batiste, mitigating, said Griffiths carried out the attack at a time when he was struggling to cope with the grief of losing his mother.

Mr Batiste said Griffiths had been abusing drugs and was suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder.

Recorder Simon Eckersley told Griffiths he was imposing the extended sentence as he believed he continued to pose a serious risk to members of the public in the future.

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He said: “You subjected her to a catalogue of injuries that were described by the Crown as torture.

“It is only by the grace of god that she was not caused more serious harm than those which were inflicted upon her.”

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