A Fife man thought he would die as he was taken hostage in his own home and throttled and beaten by an attacker he met on the Grindr dating app.
Dean Slessor, 31, locked the door to Conner Burdett’s second floor flat in Kelty and violently assaulted him.
Mr Burdett managed to send a desperate message to friends on his iPad as Slessor smoked a cigarette on the balcony.
When police arrived and said they were going to get a battering ram, Mr Burdett was able to escape and collapsed in shock on the landing after what he said was a four-hour ordeal.
Speaking to The Courier, Mr Burdett said: “He would have just kept going, he tried to kill me.”
Slessor appeared from custody at Dunfermline Sheriff Court for sentencing after earlier being found guilty of the abduction and assault to injury in Netherton Gardens on January 6 last year.
He still denies his guilt.
Sheriff Susan Duff said the case should have been prosecuted in the High Court and Slessor, of Green Street in Rothes, Moray, was “unbelievably lucky” the Crown chose to reduce the matter to summary complaint.
Sentencing, Sheriff Duff told Slessor: “You held your victim hostage in his own home.
“You violently assaulted him. He was in fear of his own life”.
She said because prosecutors dealt with him in the sheriff court, she could not impose “a sentence that befits” Slessor’s behaviour.
She jailed Slessor for a year, the maximum available, backdated to September 10 when he was remanded.
Sudden attack
Mr Burdett said he met Slessor on Grindr when he was in a vulnerable state and they had met in person once or twice before the incident at his home.
He said Slessor became angry when he said he was going to leave the flat and started “rattling him” on the head with punches.
“I ended up on the floor and he was strangling me – he was trying to kill me.
“I bit his pinkie and he had dragged me up and he said ‘how do you like it’ and snapped my pinkie right back”.
During her sentencing remarks, Sheriff Duff detailed the attack and said Slessor had pulled his victim’s arms away from his face as he tried to protect himself to repeatedly land punches to his face.
Mr Burdett pretended he had passed out to end the attack and Slessor kicked him in the ribs.
Sheriff Duff told Slessor: “You then choked him, your victim could not breathe at all.
“He described what you did as ‘100%, a complete choke’.
“He was frantically trying to release your grip on his neck and managed to bite your pinkie.
“In response to him doing that you broke his pinkie, saying to him ‘how do you like it’?”
Mr Burdett, at 5ft 6 and eight-and-a-half stones, was dwarfed by bulky 6ft 2 Slessor.
The sheriff said: “You dragged him to his feet. He managed to get to his front door and open it.
“You slammed the door shut and removed the key, putting it in your pocket, calling him a b*****d”.
Slessor then pinned Mr Burdett on the living room couch before escorting him to the bathroom. When he came out, he violently pulled a chain from his neck.
Sheriff Duff said: “Your victim believed he had no way to get out of his flat other than jumping from another balcony to escape.”.
Rescued
Mr Burdett told us he had initially tried to pick up his phone but Slessor stopped him and threw it away.
When the aggressor was smoking on the balcony on the other side of his flat, he managed to find the iPad under the living room sofa.
He said: “I frantically messaged my pal to say ‘get the police out, get the police out’.
“Then I started getting pictures (of his injuries) on the iPad to send to pals.
“I sent it to about five people on Facebook Messenger.”
Mr Burdett said police arrived in about five minutes and he managed to get to the door to tell them Slessor would not let him out.
Slessor heard the officers say they were going to get a battering ram and he threw the keys at his victim, who managed to open the door and escape.
He said: “That’s when the shock hit me and I started hyperventilating.
“I could not breathe. My throat was burning and I collapsed”.
Asked how long the whole attack went on for, he said: “It went on for about four hours – he just kept hammering me and hammering me.”
He said his neck was “black and blue” and his face was covered in cuts and bruises.
Ongoing trauma
Now 21, Mr Burdett said he has been “traumatised” and is “terrified” to leave his home without anyone coming to meet him.
He said he recently vomited in fear as he returned home – nearly two years after the attack – and has to call friends to help get shopping.
He violently shakes whenever someone comes to the front door.
At one point he became malnourished because he kept getting flashbacks when he ate food, which made him feel sick, so he stopped eating properly.
Mr Burdett told said has made attempts to end his own life and has been getting psychiatric help.
He now has nine replica front door keys stashed across different parts of his home.
‘It should have been attempted murder’
Mr Burdett said he understood the sentencing limitations in the case and he is just trying to move on with his life.
His friend, Robert Spencer-Taylor, who sat in on our interview, said: “If anything, Conner has more restriction on his liberty then Dean.
“The prosecutor has gone after the wrong charge – it was strangulation, it should have been attempted murder. He was trying to kill him.
“If that was in the High Court, he would have got about five years. He will be out in four months.
“Given the length of the attack and type of attack and the effect it’s had on Conner, is that reasonable? No. He should be away for much longer.”
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