Five men who beat, burned, stabbed and tortured a woman for three hours in a Dublin flat last year have been jailed for between eight-and-a-half and 14 years.
Natalie Ennis was abducted and tortured because of a row over missing drugs which she knew nothing about.
She said in a victim impact statement that if "the police hadn't come in that day" she was "sure" she was dead, adding that "animals wouldn't have done what they did".
The 37-year-old was burned on her face and legs with a heated hammer head and a makeshift blowtorch made from a deodorant can, and she and her daughter were threatened with rape.
Her hair was also cut in what the judge described as "a humiliating, medieval ritualistic punishment, especially for a female".
Watch: 'Natalie wasn't assaulted, she was tortured', Sonas chief executive
Ms Ennis was rescued when gardaí raided the flat.
The ringleader and main interrogator, Braxton Rice, 21, from Henrietta House, Henrietta Place in Dublin 7 was sentenced to 15 years with one suspended, a jail sentence of 14 years.
Mark McMahon, 55, in whose home the attack took place, was jailed for 12 years, while his son, 33-year-old Mark Keogh was sent to prison for nine years.
Sean Conroy, 21, of Sillogue Road in Ballymun, who was another of "the main movers", was sentenced to 13 years with the final year suspended.
Kian Walshe, 22, of Constitution Hill in Dublin 7, who brought Ms Ennis to the flat in his car, was sentenced to 11 years with two-and-a-half suspended.
All pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and assault causing harm to Ms Ennis at Henrietta House on 26 September 2024 and through their defence counsel, expressed remorse and regret in court for what they have done.
Judge describes attack as prolonged with psychological and physical violence
Two of the men, Rice and Conroy, were born addicted to drugs and their mothers were drug addicts.
Four of the men came from disadvantage, poverty and drug addiction while one of them, Kian Walshe had a supportive family.
His offending was described as "out of character".
Eight men were involved in the attack. The sixth man and a juvenile are still before the courts while the eighth person is not before the courts.
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Judge Pauline Codd described the attack as prolonged with psychological and physical violence involving various and frightening weapons.
She said it was pre-planned, the victim was vulnerable and deliberately targeted and the level of violence was disturbing, cruel and sadistic, including methods of torture.
She also said the attack took place in the context of enforcement in the drugs business and the loss of high-value drugs.
This, she said, demonstrates the evil associated with drug dealing which underpins the trade.
Sonas says level of violence and cruelty 'defies belief'
Speaking outside the court the victim said she was feeling "numb" and the CEO of the domestic violence charity Sonas, David Hall, issued a statement on her behalf.
He described Ms Ennis as a "woman who was lured, trapped, and subjected to a level of violence and cruelty that defies belief."
"This was not an assault. It was torture, deliberate, sustained and devastating," he said.
He thanked Judge Codd for her compassion and understanding and the gardaí for their work.
He said Ms Ennis would not have survived if gardaí had not arrived at the flat to serve a warrant.
"Natalie is a survivor," he said, who has paid "a heavy price".
"Her life and that of her family have been changed forever."
"Natalie has had to fight again and again for the basic supports to rebuild her life" - "dental care, injury repair, somewhere safe to live".
He criticised a "mess of a system dysfunctional that states it protects women and victims of violence which is clearly and evidently untrue".
He also said that while Sonas was providing support, "the system is a patchwork of services that don't always connect or respond and often leave women like Natalie behind".
"We need to ask ourselves is the State really supporting all victims, women, especially those who have had violence perpetrated against them," Mr Hall said.
"Justice is not just something that happens in a courtroom. Justice is care, safety and repair."
"Until the state delivers that fully and consistently women will continue to carry that cost with their bodies, their minds and their futures.
"We fund legal services in Natalie’s case but we do not fund services to help and support victims whose evidence we hear relayed in those very same courts," said Mr Hall.
Detective Garda Peter Guyett told the court earlier this week that Ms Ennis and her then-partner were staying with one of the men and became aware he was holding drugs in his house.
On the day of the attack, that man and another person told her to come with them and she was put into an Audi with two other men.
She was driven to McMahon's flat in Henrietta House where she was terrorised and tortured.
The detective said Rice began questioning Ms Ennis about a €90,000 batch of cocaine that had gone missing from the house she was staying in.
Rice accessed her Facebook account, demanded her mother's address and threatened to rape her 17-year-old daughter who was staying there.
He started hitting her across the head with a metal pole before he "lost control" and started hitting her all over her body, the court heard.
McMahon held a hatchet up to her face while his son Mark Keogh, referred to in court as 'Sparky' hit her across the head with a pole.
Sean Conroy kicked her in the face.
While Ms Ennis was being hit and kicked, Rice burned her by heating up the head of a hammer and pressing it "over and over" against her bare legs.
At one point, she heard the men on the phone to their "boss" who told them to "strip her off and get her into bed and bugger her".
They did not do this, but they told her a "black man" whom Ms Ennis said they referred to as "a monkey" was coming to rape her.
In text messages read out in court today, one of the men boasted to a friend that they had a "hostage" and had "cut her up", to which this unidentified man replied - "quality".
'Animals wouldn't have done what they did', says Ennis
Phone video footage taken inside the flat that day was also played in court, which showed Ms Ennis bloodied and distressed and a hammer being heated up on a hob.
Ms Ennis said in her victim impact statement which the garda read out that she suffered severe burns to her legs, face and hair and that she can "never get the smell out" of her own skin and body burning.
They had, she said, an aerosol can and a lighter and a heated hammer and the men ran at her at speed from another room and assaulted her.
"Animals wouldn’t have done what they did," she said.
"I was begging them to stop, one woman with eight men, they made me feel so helpless."
She spent five weeks in hospital undergoing skin grafts and surgery twice for injuries to her back and elbow.
She also sustained a fractured skull, cheek bone and eye socket and scarring to her face and body.
"Supposedly drugs were missing," she said, "It had nothing to do with me.
"No matter what I said, they didn’t believe me.
"I was beaten, stabbed, burned, and tortured to confess to something I knew nothing about."
"I had to give up my daughter and mam's name," she said.
"They said they would get my daughter out of school and rape her, my little girl.
"They got my mam's home address, tortured it out of me, said they were going to her house.
"They said they were going to make me drink ammonia."
Ms Ennis said she still suffers flashbacks where she has to "live it all over again" and night terrors.
She is afraid to go out, particularly at night.
"It has affected my mind, my identity," she said.
"Three hours felt like three years, I burst out crying when I think about it, nothing helps.
"I will never forgive these sick human beings. I never knew humanity could be so cruel," she said. "I hope you can sleep well at night 'cos I can’t."
Judge Codd said Ms Ennis had been through "unimaginable trauma".
