'Sadistic' drug dealer tortured captive woman

A drug dealing "bully" who held two women captive, torturing one of them, has been jailed for 19 years after being extradited back to the UK from Thailand to face justice.

Vincent Agar, now aged 80, used knives, boiling water, cigarettes and tools to carry out "sadistic" acts against one woman and threatened to shoot another in Middlesbrough between 1998 and 2000, Durham Crown Court heard.

Both women said they had been haunted by his actions ever since.

Agar, who was previously jailed for wounding a partner, denied wrongdoing but was found guilty of offences including intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm and false imprisonment.

Agar was a crack cocaine dealer in his 50s when he targeted the first woman - a vulnerable drug addict in her 20s - in "revenge" after she stole from him, prosecutor Rebecca Brown said.

He tied her up at a home on Clarendon Road while she was unconscious and began attacking her with weapons, the court heard.

As well as attacking her, he threatened to smash her hands with a wrench in conduct that was "sadistic" and tantamount to "torture", Brown said.

Agar also pretended to make phone calls in which he said the woman's dead body would soon be ready for collection.

The woman was able to escape after about eight hours hours by climbing out of a window when Agar went out to get drugs, the court heard.

But he caught her again at a later date and held her prisoner for three more days at his home on Parliament Road, carrying out more attacks which left her with burns and other injuries, the court heard.

He also hacked off clumps of her hair which could "only be part of sadistic conduct", Brown said.

Agar imprisoned a second woman to "stop her talking" after she saw a young woman, presumed to be a "sex worker", tied to a radiator at his Parliament Road home, Brown said.

He threatened to shoot her if she told anyone what she had seen before she was allowed to leave about an hour later, the court heard.

In statements read to the court, the first woman said she had been a low-level drug addict when Agar appeared as a "knight in shining armour" offering her free drugs.

But he "massively increased" her addiction and ended up holding her prisoner and torturing her, the court heard.

She said the violence had had a huge impact on her life and was the "start of [her] downward spiral".

Finding out Agar had been convicted resulted in her "best night's sleep in years", the woman said.

"These events have haunted me for years and I feel I can finally move on with my life."

The second woman said one her "biggest regrets" was not getting help for the "girl" she saw tied up in Agar's flat, adding she had been terrified by the threats he had made to silence her.

She also said she was a "vulnerable" drug user at the time and had "little confidence in the police".

"I've lived with this guilt for decades and always hoped the girl got out OK.

"If I could meet her I would apologise and try and explain why I didn't do anything."

She said her imprisonment had left her unable to trust people and with a terror of being locked in any building.

The court heard Agar had 40 offences on his criminal record, including for wounding a woman he held prisoner for three days at about the same time he harmed the other two women, for which he was jailed for four years and five months.

He unsuccessfully appealed against that conviction, with an appeal court judge saying his actions constituted "systematic cruelty" and were "nothing short of barbaric".

In mitigation, Sophie Johnstone said Agar's life was controlled by his "incessant use of crack cocaine" at the time , but he had "addressed his addiction" and moved to Thailand, where he had started a family.

He had been living in Maret in Koh Samui, part of the Surat Thani province, prior to his extradition.

Judge Richard Bennett said Agar was a "violent and sadistic bully who enjoyed and revelled in having power over some of the most vulnerable women in our society".

He said Agar used his position and reputation as a drug dealer in central Middlesbrough to "exert control over vulnerable women", with his actions against the first woman "sickening and cruel" and involving the use of "psychological terror".

On the second occasion he held her captive for days in his "fortress" of a flat, left her permanently scarred and cut her hair to "humiliate and degrade her". the judge said.

Agar "got away" with his "brutal" crimes for more than 20 years but his offending had "now caught up" with him, the judge said, and the 80-year-old would either die in prison or be released at such an age when he would "no longer pose a threat to anyone".

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