TWO men and a woman who abused, bullied and imprisoned a man until he seriously injured himself trying to escape have been jailed for a total of eight years.
Keith Newell, Gary Goulding and Claire Lunn were sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court on Monday, November 29 after a jury had convicted them of false imprisonment.
A key witness in the trial was a 13-year-old girl on her school holidays, who saw the drama unfold on June 3 in St Helens Close, Cowley.
She saw a 55-year-old man hanging out of a first-floor window, and as she went to get her mother, he fell to the ground.
The girl's mother went to the aid of the victim, who has not been named, and said she would get an ambulance.
Lunn, who was at the window, told the woman they did not need an ambulance, and Newell and Goulding then dragged the injured man back up the stairs into the flat.
But the woman made the call anyway, and when the ambulance arrived, the defendants refused to open the door and allow the paramedics to treat the victim's injuries.
Hillingdon police had to force entry to the flat as Lunn, Goulding and Newell would not open the door.
Their victim was found in a serious condition in the living room, and eventually airlifted to hospital by helicopter in a life-threatening condition.
The premises was covered in his blood.
At hospital the man was found to be covered from head to toe in cuts and bruises, with a serious head injury, broken ribs and a broken back.
Police quickly established that Newell, Goulding and Lunn were living with the victim, having befriended him in recent months and moved in.
The court heard how, having moved in, they bullied the man and on occasions locked him in his room to stop him getting help.
Lunn, 38, and Goulding, 42, both from Margate, Kent, were sentenced to three years in prison. Newell, 61, was sentenced to two years.
