By Australia Correspondent Rachel Morton
A Sydney woman and her three children have been arrested for kidnapping a 14-year-old boy and carrying out a brutal attack.
The teenage victim claimed he was attacked by strangers in a park but later changed his story. It turns out his alleged attackers were his ex-girlfriend and her family.
Andrew Thompson is recovering at home after a three-hour ordeal that can only be described as torture.
“Punching into me, booting me in the head, that's how my face got so messed up.”
At first Andrew was too frightened to tell police what really happened, so he made up a story that he was attacked in a park by strangers on his way home from school.
He also claimed his ex-girlfriend's mother, Jennie Singh, 45, tried to help him after the attack.
“I heard a noise at the gate and my foster son come out to have a look to see what it was, and by the time we got out here he'd picked him up and was coming through the gate with him, and I just took him inside and fixed him up,” Singh says.
But two days later the woman who claimed she tried to help him and her three teenage children have been arrested, accused of kicking Andrew, beating him, putting darts in his head, ripping off his rats tail and forcing a ball into his mouth so he couldn't scream.
They're also accused of threatening to kill his family and threatening to cut his throat - their motive remains a mystery.
All this went on while Andrew's mother frantically searched for her son.
“I was terrified, I didn't know what to do, I was looking everywhere,” she says.”
The four accused appeared in court today - all have been denied bail.
3 News