A PSYCHOPATH tortured a terrified teenager for 17 hours while holding him at a friend's house, a court heard yesterday.

Robert Craig, 28, was given an automatic life sentence yesterday.

Newcastle Crown Court was told that Craig led David Griffiths, 19, and Angela Lea, 26, in the torture of 17-year-old Steven Gill on February 13.

During the 17 hours, Steven was tied up, beaten with a metal bar and has his knuckles smashed with a hammer.

Paul Sloan, prosecuting, said that Steven's ordeal began after he went to Lea's house, in Ebchester Street, South Shields, because he had nowhere to stay.

After a row over stolen goods, he was tied to a coffee table and beaten while Griffiths and Craig repeated that they would keep him at the house all night and torture him.

After being blindfolded and gagged, Steven was dragged into the kitchen, where the pair took turns beating him with a metal bar as he begged for them to stop.

Mr Sloan said: "At one stage, Lea returned to the house and was invited by the other pair to join in.

"She picked up a hammer and, while the others held Gill's wrists, she hit his hands with a hammer and grinned as he screamed in pain."

He eventually escaped and was taken to South Tyneside General Hospital where doctors were shocked by his injuries.

Craig, of Horndale Grove, B1yth, was given an automatic life sentence by Judge Michael Cartlidge under the "two strikes and out" rule after the court heard he had a string of convictions. He had admitting wounding, false imprisonment, robbery, and blackmail.

The judge said: "You beat up and tortured that young man for 17 hours. These were terrible offences."

Griffiths, of Ebchester Street, South Shields, was sentenced to a nine years in a young offenders institution after admitting robbery, wounding, and false imprisonment.

His girlfriend, mother-of-three Lea, of the same address, was jailed for 15 months after pleading guilty to wounding.