A violent repeat offender who choked and throttled women during terrifying attacks has been jailed for six years and nine months.
Kyle Torliefson assaulted one victim by compressing her throat until she lost consciousness.
He wrapped a dog lead around her neck and tightened it during a life-endangering attack.
A judge told the 32-year-old at the High Court in Edinburgh: “You have pled guilty to 15 charges of violence committed against three women”.
Lady Drummond said he’d subjected victims to “horrifying and terrifying conduct”.
Horrific violent attacks
Four of the assaults committed by Torliefson at addresses in Aberdeen were to the danger of his victims’ lives.
One ordeal resulted in permanent disfigurement.
The judge told Torliefson: “Given the sustained and serious nature of these offences, custody is the only appropriate sentence”.
Lady Drummond ordered that, following his prison term, Torliefson should be under supervision in the community for a further three years.
She warned him that if he breached licence conditions during that period, he could be returned to jail.
The former oil industry worker began the series of assaults in December 2017 and continued the offending up until January 2021.
In 2019, he pinned a woman to a bed at a house in Aberdeen and knelt on her chest, before pushing a pillow into her face and applying pressure.
He admitted restricting her breathing in an assault to the danger of her life.
Torliefson also punched and kicked the woman, holding a knife against her throat and throwing sauce over her hair and body.
A second victim was subjected to throttling assaults by him between 2018 and 2021 and on one occasion, he squeezed her throat until she blacked out.
He also kicked and stamped on the woman and bit her body during the violence.
In 2020, Torliefson attacked a third woman, who was grabbed by the hair, thrown to the ground, kicked and seized by the throat.
Lengthy criminal record
Defence counsel Gareth Jones KC told the court that his client has a lengthy criminal record that began in 2007, when he was aged 16 years old.
The defence counsel said the teenager was involved in a road traffic accident that resulted in the death of a passenger.
Mr Jones said Torliefson had struggled to come to terms with what had happened and turned to illicit substances as “a coping mechanism”.
His substance abuse escalated into using Class A drugs and he began committing thefts to fuel his addiction, the court heard.
‘Wholly unacceptable’ behaviour
The defence counsel said there was a gap of offending in Torliefson’s record and during that period, he was working abroad in the oil industry with his father.
Mr Jones said: “He recognises that his behaviour was wholly unacceptable and he described his remorse to the author of the criminal justice social work report”.
He added that Torliefson has volunteered to take part in offence-focused courses in prison and urged the judge to make the sentence to be imposed on him “as short as possible in the circumstances”.
Torliefson, who appeared from custody, followed the sentencing hearing via TV link between the court and prison.
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