Two men who helped drag their victim off the street before he was dumped naked in a dark graveyard have been jailed for a total of 17 years.
Jamie Cunningham, 30, and Steven Quill, 37, were part of a violent mob who bundled the man into a car in Paisley, Renfrewshire on December 2 2021.
The man was the innocent victim in a dispute his attackers had with a friend.
During a 12-mile terror ride, the man feared he was going to die after he was brutally beaten by the gang, who left him with serious eye injuries.
He was eventually hauled out at a freezing Langfaulds Cemetery in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire and his clothes tore off him.
His ordeal only ended when he managed to stagger to a nearby house for help.
Cunningham and Quill were sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow on Friday, having both earlier been convicted of abduction and attempted murder.
Cunningham was sentenced to eight years with Quill locked up for nine.
Quill – who had a previous conviction for attempted murder – will also be supervised for two years on his release.
Judge Douglas Brown told them: “You and a number of others put the man through a terrifying ordeal.
“You abducted him in Paisley forcibly taking him to Bearsden.
“He was repeatedly assualted during the journey, in the street and in the cemetery.
“You ripped off his clothes, leaving him lying on the ground bleeding, severely injured on a cold December night.
“He could have developed hypothermia and died had he not managed to get assistance.”
The victim earlier told how he had been short of cash in the lead up to Christmas and been offered £30 to “do a job” for a friend.
He agreed and was due to meet a man in Broomlands Street, Paisley that night.
He said he saw who he believed the person to be and went over to speak to him.
But, after a brief chat, he recalled the stranger punching him before a BMW raced up and around four masked assailants wearing latex gloves leapt out.
Giving evidence behind a screen, the victim said: “They were bigger and definitely older. They started kicking and punching while grabbing me into the car.
“I was saying you have not got the right person. You have f****d up.”
As the car raced off with the man held hostage, the attackers demanded to know where his friend stayed.
He told prosecutor John McElroy KC: “I was terrified, scared. I thought I was going to die.
“I was put in the back seat – a person at each side of me.
“They were punching the hell out of me. I thought I was going to get stabbed.”
Jurors were shown a photo of the victim’s bloodied and bruised face that he was forced to snap on his phone and made to send to his friend.
The man recalled trying to make a desperate break for freedom
He added: “I managed to pull the door open. The door was literally swinging open on the Erskine Bridge.
“I was trying to get people’s attention for help.
“But, they (the gang) were saying: ‘You have f*****g had it, wee man. You are done’.”
The man ended up at the cemetery and was yanked out the BMW.
He said: “They just jumped all over my head – kept battering the hell out of me.”
Another car drove up and the man initially thought he could finally get help – but it turned out to be reinforcements for the gang.
The victim said: “They came and said: ‘Ha, ha – you are f****d’. They ripped every stitch of clothes off me.
“I was lying on the floor in the scud. One of the boys then said: ‘That’s a shame, you are taking his dignity away’.”
The stricken victim was given a pair of jogging bottoms before he got away to get help.
Mr McElroy asked him: “After this incident, how has it affected you?”
He responded: “It has changed my life.”
He said his eyesight before was “perfect”, but is now “terrible”. He cannot see without wearing glasses.
Lawyers for Cunningham and Quill said they maintained their innocence.
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