Nicholas John Crilley: Friend’s gobsmacking letter to sentencing judge

Jailed for life: Nicholas John Crilley, 34, subjected a woman, 22, to ‘sadistic’ attacks over three-and-a-half weeks including June and July 2017

A twisted bank worker who tortured a woman for 23 days was sentenced to life behind bars despite a friend’s ludicrous letter to a judge describing him as a ‘good human being’.  

Brisbane man Nicholas John Crilley, 34, was jailed on Friday morning for his prolonged attack on a woman, 22, over more than three weeks in June and July 2017.

Crilley broke the woman’s teeth, stabbed her with a screwdriver, repeatedly raped her and left her on the verge of death with burns to 46 per cent of her body. 

She was permanently disfigured by the ordeal, where she was virtually his prisoner at his townhouse in Bulimba and hidden away in a city hotel.

Queensland District Court judge Anthony Rafter SC detailed a gobsmacking letter from one of Crilley’s friends as he handed down his sentence on Friday morning. 

The friend, who was not identified in the judge’s sentencing remarks, wrote in a character reference to the court that he believed Crilley was an ‘honourable person and a good human being’.

Judge Rafter drolly told Crilley: ‘I would not describe you as an honourable person or a good human being.’ Instead, he chose other words for the monstrous man: ‘cruel’, ‘callous’, ‘despicable’ and ‘sadistic’ among them.

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)

Judge Rafter said the only other friend to volunteer a character reference described Crilley’s behaviour as ‘unacceptable and out of character’. 

The judge told Crilley: ‘I am by no means certain that your friends are aware of the magnitude of your offending.’ 

Crilley left the young woman with injuries so bad that several of her wounds were infected with maggots. The court heard her life will never be the same.   

The day she was found, July 2, 2017, the court heard Crilley boasted to a friend that he had ‘pummeled her so hard that she can’t even talk.’ 

‘I poured methylated spirits onto her and set her alight, I have pummelled her so hard that I think she had a stroke. She can’t talk anymore.’  

That same day, Crilley called Triple Zero anonymously, saying he had a friend ‘in pretty bad shape’ and he didn’t know what happened to her.

He became ‘upset’ when an operator asked questions about what had specifically happened. 

Despite defence arguments that his 000 call was a mitigating factor, the judge ruled that Crilley only cared about himself.

‘It was concern for yourself that ultimately led to her survival,’ Judge Rafter said.  

Some of the ordeal occurred Spring Hill’s Tower Mill Metro Hotel where the court heard Crilley ‘hid’ the victim for five days

Crown Prosecutor Sandra Cupina had called for a life sentence at a sentencing hearing last week, saying he had inflicted the most ‘unimaginable horror’ on the victim. 

Defence lawyer Malcolm Harrison told the court Crilley was in a methylamphetamine-induced delusional state during the prolonged assault. 

Mr Harrison said Crilley believed the woman had been part of a drive-by shooting that targeted him, but that was not based on reality. 

Judge Crilley was unsparing in his condemnation of Crilley. 

‘You took pleasure in the infliction of pain. Your brutality took her to the edge of death,’ he said on Friday.

He had nothing but praise for his victim. ‘The victim’s life will never be the same,’ he said. 

‘Yet despite the terrible ordeal she has suffered, she displays courage, dignity and resilience. 

In a brave 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.’  

But she may have drawn some comfort at the thought Crilley may never walk free again. 

Nicholas Crilley was on parole at the time for drug offences when he was charged – as his criminal past of bashing a man for saying ‘hello’ and a gutless McDonald’s attack on a 19-year-old woman is revealed

Nicholas Crilley was on parole when he brutally tortured a woman, 22, at his Bulimba home and at a Brisbane hotel in June and July 2017 

On sentencing, Judge Rafter said Nicholas Crilley’s lengthy criminal record spoke to the nature of his character – with the torturer on parole for meth-related offences at the time of his release.

Daily Mail Australia can reveal Crilley had served three jail stints in the years leading up to his brutal and prolonged abuse of the young woman, 22, in June and July 2017. 

Crilley only walked free from prison in March 2017, after serving part of a two-and-a-half year sentence behind bars for charges including possessing 13 grams of meth.

Prior to that, he had served time for property, weapons and drugs offences. And before that, he was jailed for a separate, gutless assault on a young woman, 19, at a McDonalds in Fortitude Valley in 2014.   

During that incident, he became ‘fixated’ on the young woman and told her she looked ‘beautiful’ before hurling abuse at her and her boyfriend. Crilley violently grabbed the woman by the wrist and threw food in her face, court documents obtained exclusively by Daily Mail Australia said.

Crilley’s criminal record before that stretches all the way back to 2005, when he was sentenced for breaking into 10 homes and stealing or damaging property worth up to $22,000. He was handed community service.

He was given a suspended sentence in 2006 for assault occasioning bodily harm for punching two young men, after one of them said ‘hello’ to him in the city. 

And in 2008, he was convicted of breaching a domestic violence order by sending a text message to a woman he was not supposed to contact.  

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk