Apprentice Tortured `horribly'

The Age

Thursday June 27, 1996

Victoria Button

An apprentice cabinetmaker was burned with an iron, tied up, punched, kicked, shot with a stapling gun and set alight by workmates in what a magistrate yesterday said was horrible cruelty belonging in another age.

In sentencing, Ms Wendy Wilmoth told the Melbourne Magistrates Court it was appalling to think children could be treated this way, when parents sent their children to apprenticeships expecting supervision.

The prosecutor, Mr Phillip Raimondo, said David McHugh - who started work at 16 - endured eight months of being harassed, beaten and injured by his workmates before leaving after he was set on fire on 31 August last year.

One workmate at Ultimate Cabinets in Williamstown sprayed him with paint thinner as he cleaned cabinets from a ladder, while another used a cigarette lighter to set him alight, Mr Raimondo said.

``He was told to bear the pain and it would go away," Mr Raimondo said, but, after two hours, he was taken to a local doctor by the workmates before being admitted to hospital for three days.

Mr Raimondo said the apprentice had also been: * Tied to a trailer and punched.

* Burned with a hot clothes iron on his right forearm.

* Hanged by the straps of his overalls to a forklift where he was punched and kicked to the legs.

* Shot with a stapling gun throughout the period of his employment.

* Set alight on a previous occasion.

Mr Patrick Dwyer, for two of three former workmates who were charged, said there was a culture of bastardisation in the trades. His clients had suffered similar events at work.

Sebastian Anthony Iaia, 27, of Altona, and Emmanuel Cassar, 19, of Altona Meadows (who was not involved in setting David McHugh alight), pleaded guilty to five charges, including assault and conduct endangering a person.

Fidel Benito Velasquez, 39, of Hoppers Crossing, pleaded guilty to one count of recklessly causing serious injury.

Ms Wilmoth sentenced Cassar and Iaia to three months' jail, suspended for a year, and to 250 hours of community work as part of a community-based order.

Velasquez was sentenced to one months' jail, suspended for a year, and 100 hours of community work.