A Muslim woman who pretended she was raped by her boyfriend, leading to his prolonged torture by a gang, because she thought he would show explicit photos of her to her devout parents has been jailed.
Sonia Begum, 21, had complained to her cousin Shahen Ahmed, 21, that the man had sexually assaulted her.
Ahmed then rounded up a gang who kidnapped and set fire to the 22-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The ‘extraordinary and determined barrage’ of violence included setting fire to the victim’s face, beating him with a belt and kicking him in the stomach.
Begum had claimed that the man was pestering her, and feared that her strict Muslim parents would disapprove of any contact between them, partly because he was Hindu, the Old Bailey heard.
Judge Wendy Joseph QC told Begum: ‘You were a young woman leading a double life, trying to comply with a strict regime imposed by your family while secretly having boyfriends, a Facebook account and phones for personal relationships.
‘You knew that the kidnap would lead to other things.’
Begum lured him to meet her in Barking, east London, speaking to him on one mobile phone while maintaining an open line to her brother Mohammed Hussain, 20.
Ahmed, Hussain and two other men - Mafijur Rahman, 45, and Kasim Uddin, 35 - then kidnapped him.
She was jailed for four years for kidnap on Friday, while Ahmed was given an indeterminate sentence for public protection for leading the horrifically violent attack.
Judge Joseph told Ahmed: ‘Whatever wrong he did could not possibly justify what was done to him. The impact upon him was clearly as devastating as it was to his whole family.’
She went on: ‘The nature of the punishment was profoundly cruel. You set about physically and mentally hurting (the man) by beating, by fire, by verbal abuse, by fear and by humiliation.’
During the kidnap, a series of ‘truly terrifying’ phone calls were made demanding money from his family, in which he could be heard screaming, the court heard.
The judge said: ‘They were very frightening. There were repeated threats to kill (the man) backed up by the sound of him screaming and crying in fear and pain. They were truly terrifying.’
The attackers also repeatedly called him a ‘Hindu b******'.
Ahmed, of Wapping, east London, was told he must serve at least eight-and-a-half years before he can apply for parole.
He admitted kidnap, false imprisonment, blackmail and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Hussain, of Poplar, east London, was jailed for 14 years; Uddin, of Mile End, east London, received 11-and-a-half years; and Rahman was sentenced to six-and-a-half years for their roles in the attack.
Noor Miah, 49, of Mile End, east London, whose flat was used for the kidnap and torture, received two years for false imprisonment.
He was told: ‘You lay on your bed allowing your home to be used for what amounted to torture.
‘You are not a violent man but a weak one.’