A terrified young father was tied up and tortured after being lured to a flat by his ex-girlfriend.

While being detained against his will for almost 24 hours, Luke Pratt was repeatedly hit with a golf club, had a solution containing bleach poured over him and cigarettes stubbed out on him.

The victim suffered the ordeal because deluded Luke Emerson, 24, from Gillingham, believed he was stalking him, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

Mr Pratt, 24, was contacted by his former girlfriend Emma Brown, then 17, on February 28, and asked to go to Emerson’s flat in Gillingham Road.

He had been there a couple of hours when Emerson suddenly struck him on the nose with a golf club.

He was then tied to a plastic garden chair by his shoelaces and hit again with the club.

Prosecutor Edmund Fowler said Mr Pratt’s phone was taken and smashed. Cigarettes were stubbed out on his bare skin and a solution containing bleach was poured into his mouth.

After about five hours he was freed from the chair but then tied to a bed. He kept begging disabled Emerson, said to only be able to move using crutches, and Brown to untie him.

His pleas were ignored but when he was left alone he was able to use a knife to cut the ties.

Battered and bleeding, Mr Pratt fled to nearby Sainsbury's where shocked staff called an ambulance. He at first claimed he had been "jumped" while walking home and described being taken into a house and beaten by a man and woman.

Mr Fowler said the victim was reluctant to give details because his attackers made threats to kill his two-year-old daughter. But he eventually named Emerson and Brown and told police the address.

"The behaviour of both of you was absolutely appalling" - Judge Richard Polden

He estimated he had been hit on the head and body about 45 times with the golf club and kicked, as well have having hot candle wax tipped down his back.

He had cuts on his back, bruising to his arms and hands and a puncture wound to his left knee. Salt had been poured into his ears.

Brown at first denied being involved in the assaults but then admitted: “I did it but there was a reason.”

She said she was too scared to run away or call for help. She described Emerson beating Mr Pratt with the club over and over again. He screamed for Emerson to stop.

Emerson and Brown, now 18, of Corporation Road, Gillingham, admitted false imprisonment and assault causing actual bodily harm.

Jailing Emerson for four-and-a-half years and sentencing Brown to 27 months youth custody, Judge Richard Polden said: “The behaviour of both of you was absolutely appalling.”

The judge made a restraining order banning Emerson and Brown from contacting Mr Pratt for five years.

Austin Stoton, defending, said Emerson had an itinerant life from childhood into adulthood. He suffered from a delusional disorder, believing he was being stalked.

“He acted on the belief that the victim was involved with the stalkers,” said Mr Stoton. “It is plain he needs some form of proper treatment."

John Fitzgerald, for Brown, said the teenager had a miserable childhood and had been the victim of offending herself.

“She has genuine remorse for what he did,” he said. “She has been in custody since her arrest.”