Four years' jail for 'perverted, degrading' attack in Queanbeyan home

CONTENT WARNING: This article contains graphic content.

An hours-long attack against a woman in Queanbeyan, which included her being forced to drink urine, has been labelled “depraved in the extreme”.

Benjamin Andrews, now aged 35, was convicted and sentenced to three years and nine months’ jail over the incident by the NSW District Court earlier this month.

He detained a woman, an associate of his, for two hours in a home in Queanbeyan in July 2022 and started his attack by repeatedly spraying her in the eyes with a substance that made her eyes and face burn.

Judge William Fitzsimmons SC said Andrews knew the substance was “sufficiently toxic” that he protected himself by wearing motorcycle goggles while spraying her.

Andrews then took the woman into the bathroom, urinated in a cup and forced her to drink it all while telling her to say: “This is nice chicken soup”, and filming her.

He also forced used toilet paper into her mouth, rubbed faeces onto her nose, kept her mouth shut by putting duct tape over it and put her into a headlock.

Andrews admitted he was laughing during parts of the attack.

“The offender was of a larger stature than the victim and [she] complied with the offender’s demands out of fear that she would be assaulted,” Judge Fitzsimmons said.

Andrews was unable to explain why he attacked the woman like this, other than saying: “I was off my head on drugs”.

Judge Fitzsimmons said his conduct could only be described as “depraved in the extreme”.

“It involved the victim, at the hands of the offender, being subjected to the most perverted, debasing and degrading actions,” he said.

“It was clearly intended to inflict untold and irreparable harm to the victim and self-evidently would be categorised as gratuitous cruelty.”

Andrews pleaded guilty to a charge of detaining a person in company with intent to obtain advantage for which he faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail.

While he admitted to the crime, he disagreed with some of the allegations against him, so the matter had to proceed to a disputed facts hearing before he was sentenced.

The court heard he was aged 33, lived at home with his mother, worked as a truck driver and was affected by methamphetamine at the time of the offence.

His lawyers also argued the Queanbeyan man was suffering a mental health impairment during the attack.

However, Judge Fitzsimmons said he was not satisfied that there was any direct link between the offending and any mental impairment.

“The facts, as they have been found, involve the offender detaining the victim for a period of approximately two hours during which he engaged in deliberate and demeaning behaviour directed towards the victim,” he said.

“I am not satisfied that any depressive disorder, or for that matter impulse control condition, played any role of significance in his offending.”

Andrews was handed a non-parole period of two-and-a-half years in jail.

As this was backdated to account for time served, he will be eligible to be released from custody in April 2025.

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