Court jails gang members who branded the word 'RAT' on victim's face and torso

The judge said the court had difficulty describing what happened as words like 'dreadful, horrendous and frightening are not sufficient to describe the horror'

Jason Hennessy got eight-and-a-half years for the charges. Picture: IrishPhotoDesk.ie

Five members of a Dublin criminal gang will serve prison terms between three and eight-and-a-half years for an assault in which the victim was waterboarded, beaten with an iron bar, threatened with being raped using a stick and branded with the word "RAT" on his face and torso.

Ms Justice Karen O'Connor, sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Fiona Lydon, said the facts of the case were "shocking" and involved the use of a number of weapons designed to inflict injury and terror on the victim.