Natalie Ennis was beaten with a metal pole and burnt with a makeshift blow torch as well as being knifed and threatened with rape in a brutal ordeal for which five men have been jailed in Dublin
Five men have been jailed over the “sadistic” and “cruel” torture of a woman who was kept in a flat after being wrongly accused about missing drugs.
Natalie Ennis, then 37, was beaten with a metal pole, burned with a makeshift blow torch and a heated hammer head, cut with a knife, kicked and punched, had her hair cut off and was threatened with rape over a three hour period, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard. The men took running jumps at her in a one-bedroom flat, threatened to make her drink ammonia and also threatened to rape her teenage daughter.
She was terrified throughout and thought she was going to die, Caroline Cummings BL, prosecuting, told an earlier sentence hearing. The assault only ended when Gardaí entered the flat with a search warrant, the court heard, reported the Irish Mirror.
All of the men, who have between one and 124 previous convictions respectively, were on bail at the time of the offence. Five of the eight men present that day entered guilty pleas, while another man and a juvenile are still before the courts. The eighth person is not before the courts.
Mark Keogh, 33, Mark McMahon, 55, Braxton Rice, 21, Sean Conroy, 21, Kian Walshe, 22, all from Dublin, pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and assault causing harm to the woman on September 26, 2024. A number of other counts against each man relating to the production of articles in the course of an offence were taken into consideration.
Sentencing on Wednesday, Judge Pauline Codd said the violence included ”disturbing, cruel and sadistic methods of torturing a woman by a group of men”, adding later that a group of men against one woman is, in itself, “terrifying”.
Judge Codd noted that this offending took place in the context of other criminal activity, namely “enforcement” in relation to the alleged loss of drugs and that all the men were on bail at the time.
She noted Ms Ennis was humiliated by having her hair cut, describing this as an “almost ritualistic medieval punishment, especially when directed at a female”.
The victim’s evidence showed that all of the men were involved in assaulting her and the judge said that some of the men indicated they had been using drugs that day, which may explain their conduct but did not excuse it.
Detective Garda Peter Guyett told the court that at the time of the incident, Ms Ennis and her then partner were staying with one of the men whose case is still before the court. While there, the woman became aware this man was holding drugs in his house.
On the day in question, this man and another person approached the woman in the house and told her: “Come on, we’ve to go”, before she was put into an Audi containing two other men and driven to Henrietta House where the attack took place.
There were eight men in the flat and a “baby-faced” man, who later emerged to be Rice, started interrogating her about a €90,000 batch of cocaine that had gone missing from the home she was staying in.
Rice accessed Ms Ennis’ Facebook account and demanded her mother’s address, threatening to rape her teenage daughter who was staying there. He started hitting her across the head with a metal pole before he “lost control” and started hitting her all over her body, the court heard.
An older man, later identified as McMahon, whose flat it was, held a hatchet up to her face while his son Keogh, referred to in court as ‘Sparky’, hit her across the head with a pole. Conroy kicked her face. “Every person there hit her,” Ms Cummings said. “Not one of them didn’t get involved”.
She said the men would walk into the next room so they had more space in order to run at the victim with speed while assaulting her. While she was being hit and kicked, Rice heated the head of a hammer up and pressed it “over and over” against her bare legs, the court heard.
They cut her hair, which the woman later described as “the ultimate humiliation”. At one point, she heard the men on the phone to their “boss” who said: “Strip her off and get her into bed and bugger her.” They didn’t do this but they told her a “black man” was coming to rape her, the court heard.
The man whose house she was staying in was told by the others to get involved and he cut her legs with some sort of blade. They used an aerosol can and a lighter as a makeshift blow torch to burn her.
Judge Codd said Rice was the “main ringleader” who acted as “inquisitor” in relation to the missing drugs, made “vicious threats” and heated implements which were used to burn the victim. She said he used “sadistic torture and threats” and handed him a sentence of 15 years, with the final 12 months suspended on strict conditions.
The judge said Conroy was “one of the main movers” in this offending, “eclipsed only by the actions of Rice”. She said he was “centrally involved” and imposed a sentence of 13 years, with the final 12 months suspended on strict conditions.
Handing McMahon a sentence of 12 years, Judge Codd noted he allowed his flat to be used, “facilitated and actively took part” in the offending, but was not the “main mover”.
McMahon’s son, Keogh, was jailed for nine years for his involvement. Walshe was given a sentence of 11 years with the final two-and-a-half years suspended on strict conditions .
Ms Ennis was left with a broken eye socket, broken cheekbone, broken nasal bone, broken elbow, burns, dislocated teeth, bruising and lacerations across her head and scalp among other injuries. She required skin grafts, staples to her scalp and later had surgery to remove a disc in her back, the court heard. She spent three weeks in hospital in the immediate aftermath of the assault.
In her victim impact statement, which was read out by the investigating officer, Ms Ennis said she was “petrified” in the flat. “If police didn’t come in through that door that day, I was sure I was dead,” she said, describing the men as “animals”.
“I was beaten, stabbed and burnt – tortured to confess to something I knew nothing about,” she said. “The smell of my skin burning, I will never get that smell out of my mind again,” she said, adding that she was “completely helpless” and outnumbered by the eight men. “I never knew humanity could be so cruel,” she said.