Dangerous man who tortured Sheffield woman held captive in flat is jailed for life for sadistic attacks on two other victims

Andrew Delsol, aged 55, was jailed yesterday for battering and torturing two women in Bradford between 1985 and 2001.

Delsol was found guilty of four counts of rape, two counts of indecent assault, wounding with intent, assault and making threats to kill.

He was branded a ‘dangerous man,’ sentenced to life behind bars and ordered to serve a minimum of nine years locked up before he can be considered for release.

In 1989 he was jailed for 15 years in Sheffield after leaving his then girlfriend scarred for life when he held a blowtorch to her face, stomach and chest.

Some of her wounds were so deep medics said plastic surgery would never conceal them.

He had accused his 21-year-old partner of having an affair with his brother and tortured and sexually assault her for four days after locking her in the attic of her Pitsmoor home.

He stripped, tied and gagged her, beat her with a stick, tried to force her to drink bleach and tied a noose round her neck so he could drag her around the room like a dog.

In one incident he left her hanging out of a window, naked, with a rope tied around her neck.

One of his beatings robbed her of her hearing.

His Sheffield victim described him as ‘cruel and sadistic’ and the judge who jailed him said he was a ‘danger to women’.

In 2002, he was jailed for another eight years for torturing another girlfriend in a six-day ordeal.

The judge in that second case described him as as a ‘real, serious, and continuing danger to women’ after hearing how he slit the throat of his terrified 16-year-old victim and said he was going to dismember her while she was still alive.

He smashed her nose with his hand, kicked and punched her in the stomach, hurled her head-first into a wall and beat her with a length of wood.

In one episode, he brandished an axe in front of her and said he would use it to dismember her.

In 2015 he was jailed for eight years for terrorising another young woman he abused after locking her in a flat over a four month period.

After his latest trial, which concluded this week, Detective Constable Andrew Ellis, of Bradford District CID, said: “Delsol is clearly a very dangerous man and I hope the sentence he has received today will be of some comfort to his victims.

“I would like to thank them for their courage in testifying against someone who subjected them to sexual abuse and violence.

“I also hope it encourages other victims of historic sexual offences to contact their local Safeguarding Unit, whose specially trained officers will investigate every report and provide support for the victims so perpetrators like Delsol can be brought to justice.”

Jurors who found him guilty this week of historic offences against two women heard how one of his victims was raped and repeatedly attacked by Delsol when she was a teenage sex worker in Bradford.

He tried to drown her in her bath a number of times and indecently assaulted her with a vacuum cleaner pole.

She described him as a ‘psychopath'.

The second victim was stabbed with a screwdriver and had petrol poured over her as Delsol threatened to set her alight.

He also attempted to drown her and threatened her with an axe.

She said she was battered ‘black and blue’ daily and described him as ‘evil and narcissistic’.

One of Delsol’s victims in the latest case said: “I am elated at this verdict which means I can move forward with my life, knowing the man who violently and sexually abused me and other women has been given a life sentence.”