29 hours of terror draw jail sentence

Burnt, bruised and a knife pressed to her throat, Natasha Greer could manage only one word – no.

No, she didn’t want to resume her relationship with her exboyfriend.

No, she didn’t want to be kidnapped and tortured for 29 hours. No, she didn’t want to die. But Luke Paul Richards didn’t listen.

Richards, 35, was sentenced in the Palmerston North District Court on Thursday to two years, eight months behind bars, and convicted of assault, kidnapping and wounding with intent.

Greer broke into tears as her tormentor was escorted from the courtroom.

The latest offending took place at a Bunnythorpe property last year on June 13.

Greer was in a vehicle with two other men, when a man wielding a knife and disguised in a black bandanna approached.

She froze, fearing what was about to take place.

Richards had had his ankle bracelet removed only a few days earlier and he was on a rampage to mend his broken relationship with Greer.

He punched one of the men in the mouth, before jumping into the car and ordering Greer to drive.

They parked in a driveway a few minutes up the road, where Richards smashed two mobile phones.

He asked Greer to resume their relationship, but she declined.

‘‘You got aggressive and damaged the upholstery with the knife,’’ Judge Lance Rowe told Richards.

‘‘She had no choice in what was going on.’’

Richards continued to drive around the wider Manawatu¯, stopping only to allow his victim to relieve herself on the roadside.

She spent the night locked in the car on an isolated road.

During the ordeal, one of the tyres popped and Richards used his mobile phone to call an associate to deliver a space saver.

He then made Greer call a police officer to explain she was safe and happy.

He punched her several times, and taunted her by holding a lighter and knife to her face. At one point, he burnt her leg. He requested sex on several occasions and became violent when she declined.

Police found the pair in an old quarry near Feilding, about 29 hours after the male associates reported the attack.

‘‘She was too scared to leave the vehicle out of fear for what would happen to her,’’ the judge said.

‘‘She did not believe she was going to live through it. She knew you were violent, but not to this extent.

‘‘You told her you were going to kill her so many times she became used to it.’’

In her victim impact statement, Greer said she suffered nightmares about the attack.

She struggles to trust men, something made worse by a recently released psychological report explaining Richards was at high risk of reoffending.

Defence lawyer Paul Murray said Richards suffered extensive abuse from family members when he was a child.

He had gang tattoos on his arm, which he was removing with laser surgery.

Richards had turned to methamphetamine and violence as coping mechanisms in the past, but he wanted to get better, Murray said.

‘‘He accepts the harm he has caused. He’s healing and he’s willing to rehabilitate himself.’’