A 21-year-old woman, already facing sentence for involvement in “scalping” another woman, has admitted her part in an attack on a man who was found naked and beaten in a taped-up wheelie bin.
Paula Wilson, originally from Millfield, Ballymena, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting her then 27-year-old boyfriend, Teri Christopher Bernard Lau from Dunclug Park, and Roddy Patterson also 27, and from Glendun Drive, in Ballymena, to falsely imprison 21-year-old Adam Robinson.
However, charges against the three of attempting to murder Mr Robinson following a “drink and drug-fuelled party” between September 1st and 4th, 2013, were not preceded with, by the prosecution, after Lau and Patterson admitted false imprisonment and causing actual bodily harm.
Trial Judge Gordon Kerr adjourned sentencing until December 22nd.
While Wilson was granted continuing bail, her co-defendants were remanded back into custody by Antrim Crown Court.
Although no details were given, earlier hearings were told Mr Robinson was discovered, battered, naked and inside the sealed wheelie bin which had been proped up against a tree.
He was only found by chance, when a dog sniffed out the bin, sealed with parcel tape, in undergrowth at Five Mile Park, Sentry Hill, in the Co Antrim town. The dog’s barking alerted its owner who then rang the emergency services.
It was reported at the time the brutal attack on Mr Robinson was carried out after a “drink and drugs fuelled party” which lasted for days in the Dunclug Park area of Ballymena.
A detective said the victim “looked like he had been tortured. The court also heard that he was assaulted in the bathroom of the end terrace and while he had little memory of the days leading up to the attack, he however named Lau as being involved.
The PSNI officer said: “He remembers being hit by Mr Lau while in the bath. He said there were two or three people or three or four people in the bathroom.”
At the start of adjourned hearing, prosecuting Terence Mooney initially thanked Judge Kerr for the time given, and on being allowed to amend the indictment, with the addition of two charges, said that in the circumstances a jury would not be necessary to try the case.
Following their pleas to the respective charges, Mr Mooney said while the Crown were not proceeding with the attempted murder charge against the trio, and in the actual charge of false imprisonment against Wilson, they should “remain on the books”.
Wilson had been arrested after a witness told police of seeing a young woman in the area where the bin was found.
Detective seized her mobile phone, and on examination uncovered footage, not of the attack on Mr Robinson, but on an unconscious woman months earlier.
Wilson is awaiting sentence for her part in this attack, at another party between May 18th and 22nd which went unreported.
In the footage Wilson can be heard laughing as she filmed three men dry-shaving the woman’s “dark long hair” as she lay partially clothed and helpless.
Awaiting sentence with her, for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, are Ballymena men, 21-year-old Nathan Telford, Wilson Avenue, Ballykeel, 22-year-old Alister William Hamilton, Drumtara, and 42-year-old Paul Josuah Balmer from Crosshill View, Kells.
Antrim Crown Court had heard that the men using multiple bic razors, joked and laughed as they scalped and slapped the woman as she lay unconscious.