A disabled man has spoken of his “humiliation” at the hands of two cruel attackers who covered the vulnerable man with blankets and taped him to his mobility scooter.
Terrified and trapped John Tweed, whose head and body were tightly wrapped in tape, couldn’t move and even feared the pair of nasty pranksters would set him on fire.
In an exclusive interview with the Press and Journal, Mr Tweed, of Macduff in Aberdeenshire, has revealed that the ordeal left him feeling “degraded” and “ashamed”.
Calvin Gallon and Callum Swaffield later blamed their vile behaviour on a TV prank show called Jackass, claiming it gave them the idea.
The ringleader, 23-year-old Gallon was jailed for 18 months at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, while Swaffield, 18, will be sentenced early next year.
Mr Tweed, 58, has also revealed that his £7,500 mobility scooter, which Gallon and Swaffield covered in bleach, rice and eggs, later stopped working.
“Eventually my scooter was ruined because the bleach had gone into the wiring and had deteriorated them,” Mr Tweed said.
“Any time I tried to go into reverse it kept going forward and sometimes it would just keep going forward.
“I nearly got killed twice in Banff where I tried to reverse and it went forward, straight into the road while there was a truck coming towards me.”
Mr Tweed, who is disabled from the waist down and suffers from arthritis, recalled his horrific experiences during the morning of July 18 this year.
He said that Gallon and Swaffield had targetted him, deliberately knowing the helpless man couldn’t do anything to stop them – making him “a prisoner.”
Mr Tweed told our reporter that, at first, he thought the two men were “just messing about” until they started taping him down.
“I couldn’t get out. That’s when they started laughing. I was hurt and I was mad.
“It went from being a joke to being serious as they damaged my scooter.
‘Humiliating, degrading, ashamed’
As they began wrapping Mr Tweed with the parcel tape, Gallon was heard to shout: “I’m going to send this to Valhalla!”
Frightened by the statement, the disabled man then asked: “Are you going to set this on fire?”
Asked if he was scared that Gallon and Swaffield might set him on fire, he said: “Yeah, anybody would be.”
“It was humiliating, degrading and made me feel ashamed.”
‘I thought, I’m a dead man’
But still not quite finished with their wicked act, Gallon was then seen attempting to spell out the words “I am a paedo” by fastening the tape to the covers.
Mr Tweed said he feared someone would come to his door and kill him, when someone told him that Gallon had posted an image of him bound on the social media app Snapchat, with a caption suggesting that he was a paedophile.
“I thought, ‘I’m a dead man’, that’ll escalate if he’s put it on there.
“I thought something like this could end up killing me because you know what people are like when it comes to paedophilia. I’ve got children myself. I was hurt,” he said.
WATCH – Victim describes terror:
Gallon and Swaffield pleaded guilty to one charge of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner by covering their victim and securing him with tape to prevent his escape.
Gallon, who has at least two previous convictions for assault, also admitted a further charge of behaving in a threatening manner.
He’d previously turned up at another man’s home and thrown a rock through his window, before striking a door with a knife and breaking a plant pot on May 27 this year.
Gallon also pleaded guilty to being in possession of a knife three days later.
An apparently remorseless Swaffield was captured on camera giving the thumbs up to a press photographer as he left Aberdeen Sheriff Court on Thursday.
His defence solicitor Marianne Milligan had called for reports into her client’s background to be carried out and considered before he is sentenced.
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