Two Fraserburgh men have gone on trial accused of abducting and taping a 17-year-old boy to a chair before burning him with a red-hot iron.
Jodie Forman, 33, and Bobby Hendry, 31, are facing a charge that they befriended the teenager at a party then took him back to a flat where they bound him and held the hot iron to his body.
Forman is also accused of a separate charge of stabbing a 21-year-old on the foot before searing his arm with a hot iron.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court has heard evidence that the men were initially friendly with the teen before allegedly flipping “like a switch” and tying him to the chair with masking tape across the legs, body and face.
The teenager, who is now 19, claimed he was “petrified” as an iron was placed on his skin, causing the hair on his arms to “sizzle”.
The second man told the court that Forman stabbed him in the foot with a kitchen knife for “being cheeky” before producing a red-hot iron and burning his forearm.
Both Forman and Hendry deny abducting the 17-year-old and assaulting him to his permanent disfigurement.
Forman also denies a single additional charge of assaulting the other man by striking him with a knife, placing a hot iron on his body and repeatedly punching him to the head.
‘Jodie told me to stop struggling or it would get worse’
Fiscal depute Lynne MacVicar questioned the teenager about meeting the pair at a flat on Academy Street in Fraserburgh before he was invited back to Forman’s home.
He claimed that in the early hours of July 5 2020 the group had been “cracking jokes and laughing” before Hendry became aggressive and tied tape around his ankles, abdomen and across his mouth and eyes.
It is then alleged that Forman arrived from another room with a hot iron, which was then placed across his arm.
Asked what the sensation was like, the teenager said: “It only made contact with my skin for seconds but I could hear the sizzling of the hairs of my arm and a tingling sensation on my skin.
“I was petrified. Jodie told me to stop struggling or it would get worse.
“I was really scared for my safety.”
In a police statement a month after the alleged incident, the teen claimed he had “screamed” out in pain and was told by Forman that if he didn’t stop “he would burn his fingertips next”.
He then told the court he managed to break free of the tape as Forman and Hendry were in another room and ran out of the flat.
‘I could see the look on his face and he just looked mad’
The second man, now 23, also give evidence and claimed that he had been partying into the early hours at Forman’s home on Grey Street, Fraserburgh, on August 12 2020 when without warning he plunged a knife into his foot.
He said: “This is when he changed. I could see the look on his face and he just looked mad.”
The man alleges that around 10 minutes later Forman burned his forearm with an iron that had been heated up and removed from the socket.
As others at the party egged the two to fight, the man said he started to “get worried” and was then punched repeatedly in the face by Forman.
He claimed he managed to get the keys to the door of Forman’s front door and leave.
Forman’s defence agent Iain Jane cross-examined the man and asked why in several Facebook Messenger exchanges with Forman hours after the incident he does not mention the stabbing, the punching or the incident with the iron.
He pointed to one exchange where the man said “at was brutal, Jodie” and Forman replied, “av nae a clue fit you mean”.
Mr Jane said: “I would suggest to you that the reason why he is so confused is because, by this stage, you’re falsely accusing him.
“That’s the truth of the matter, isn’t it?”
“No definitely not,” the man replied.
The trial, before Sheriff Andrew Miller, continues.
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