An evil bank worker who sadistically tortured a 21-year-old for 23 days, set her on fire and left her for dead had only recently walked free from jail for attacking a woman at McDonald’s.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal the criminal past of Brisbane amateur rugby league player Nicholas John Crilley, 34 – as he faces a life sentence on Friday for a shocking prolonged assault on the unnamed young woman.
Crilley has pleaded guilty to breaking the victim’s teeth, pouring burning liquid in her eyes and leaving her permanently disfigured in a sick crime conducted through June and July 2017.
But it wasn’t the first time the one-time Commonwealth Bank employee and meth user had attacked a woman or been in trouble with the police over drugs, court documents said.
To his friends, Nicholas John Crilley, 34, was an amateur football player and bank worker – but court documents unearthed by Daily Mail Australia reveal he had a history of violence against women and was in the sights of Queensland Police over drug-related activities
Crilley (right), above at a music festival with friends, went by the ‘gangster’ nickname ‘NJ Crillz’ on social media. His lawyer has claimed in court he was delusional and using ice when he tortured his victim
In 2014, Crilley confronted a woman and her boyfriend at McDonalds, snatching her by the wrist with ‘extreme force’ and pulling her ‘back and forth violently’.
He then threw food at her, ‘striking her in the face’, court facts said.
The fight began when Crilley ‘made unwanted verbal advances’ to the woman – who was with her boyfriend – before he abused the pair and assaulted the victim.
He was sentenced to 100 hours of community service but was hauled back to court a year later, on September 1, 2015, for failing to finish his service.
Crilley was jailed for six months, with a non-parole period of two months, but appealed, claiming his imprisonment was ‘manifestly excessive’. He never showed up at court to fight it.
I’ve pummeled her so hard … she can’t talk anymore
Nicholas Crilley to a friend, as a court heard
Months later, Queensland Police took Crilley to the state’s Supreme Court in order to seize drug utensils and $1,365 in proceeds of crime.
He was ordered to surrender a set of scales, a glass pipe and a velvet bag on the grounds it was connected to possessing a dangerous drug.
But these crimes pale in comparison with what he subjected the 21-year-old Brisbane woman to at his townhouse in Bulimba – inner eastern Brisbane – and at a hotel room in mid-2017.
The victim’s injuries were so bad police who attended the scene thought she had been caught in an explosion.
He boasted to a friend: ‘I’ve pummeled her so hard … she can’t talk anymore.’
Some former friends were stunned by Crilley’s crimes after he pleaded guilty to 54 charges earlier this year. One said in a social media post this week: ‘What did I just read about NJ Crillz?
Last month, Crown Prosecutor Sandra Cupina told Brisbane’s District Court that the crimes Crilley had inflicted upon his victim were ‘unimaginable’.
She told the court he beat the woman, then became aroused and proceeded to rape her.
‘(Crilley) subjected the (woman) to severe physical, psychological and sadistic violence,’ Ms Cupina said. ‘
As (the woman) became more injured, (Crilley) increased the methods he was using to harm her.
‘First the boiling water, then the acetone, then setting her on fire.
‘The horror (she) would have been experiencing is almost unimaginable,’ she said.
The tissue on part of her face was so severely infected it was infested with maggots, the prosecutor said.
Defence lawyer Malcolm Harrison told the court Crilley was in a methylamphetamine-induced delusional state during the prolonged assault.
The victim, who was 21 at the time, was found barely alive in Nicholas John Crilley’s house in Bulimba (pictured) on July 2, 2017. She was so badly injured police who found her thought she had been involved in an explosion
Over the course of 23 days, Nicholas John Crilley forced the woman to eat her own vomit and faeces, and made her sleep on the floor (above)
Some of the ordeal occurred Spring Hill’s Tower Mill Metro Hotel where the court heard Crilley ‘hid’ the victim for five days
He said Crilley believed the woman had been part of a drive-by shooting that targeted him, but that was not based on reality.
‘This is a dreadful and extremely serious example of violence against a woman,’ he said.
Even Crilley’s lawyer admitted: ‘The offences were sadistic in nature.’
Even Crilley’s lawyer admitted: ‘The offences were sadistic in nature’
In a statement to the court, Crilley’s victim said: ‘I have been disfigured both mentally and physically.
‘It is something I would not wish on my worst enemies.’
She said people now look at her as a ‘monster’ because of her ‘horrific, very visible and predominantly irreversible’ injuries.
‘Every time I leave my home I am stared at,’ she said.
‘I do not see myself walking down an aisle and fulfilling a woman’s dream of being married in a white gown to a man she loves.’
The victim risks going blind due to her injuries and suffers post-traumatic stress order.
Loved ones hope some comfort will come from Judge Anthony Rafter SC when he hands down his sentence on Friday.