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A gang tortured a truck driver like a scene in Reservoir Dogs as they sliced off his ear.

Liverpool lorry driver Anthony Joy was bundled into the back of a 4x4 by an armed gang in Fazakerley, near Liverpool and then tortured for five days.

The torture included a mock execution and his ear being sliced off, before he was left to wander the streets naked.

The gang included his own boss, Paul Wilson, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

Wilson, 58, lured Mr Joy to an estate in Fazakerley in October by pretending his car had broken down and he needed a tow back to his home.

Mr Joy, 45, arrived to help but found the car started easily.

It was then he saw five masked men running towards him, two armed with handguns and the others with knives.

He was beaten to the floor and kicked in the mouth as one man said: “Don’t f***ing try it or I will shoot you in the face”.

Former Royal Navy serviceman Wilson was jailed for 12 years for arranging the kidnapping.

The court heard heard how Mr Joy was arrested while driving a lorry into the UK which was found to contain class A drugs.

The gang were intent on recovering the shipment of drugs.

In the movie Reservoir Dogs one famously brutal scene shows Mr Blonde, played by Michael Madsen, torturing a copy duct taping his mouth and slicing his ear off.

Mr Joy suffered a similar ordeal.

The Liverpool Echo reports he was slashed under the chin with a knife, duct taped and bundled into the boot of own Range Rover before being driven to a secret location where he was punched and kicked by men calling him “a rat” who stripped him naked and left him lying on the floor.

Mr Joy was then moved from one location to another before arriving in a room covered in black plastic and containing a collection of hammers.

Prosecutor David Potter told the court that men entered and started demanding: “Where’s our gear?”

He added: “It was then that the torture began in earnest.”

Mr Joy was subjected to a vicious beating with feet and fists and was hit on the feet with an iron bar while one man said: “Paul set you up for this because he said you have our equipment.”

He then had boiling water poured on his legs while someone said: “You can either tell us where our gear is or I can go to the house, we kidnap your wife and daughters."

The torturers then applied a blowtorch to his ankle, hand and wrist.

Mr Joy, who denies any involvement in a drugs conspiracy, said: “I can’t describe the immense pain all over my body. The pain in my heart was much worse though, just thinking about what these people were going to do to my family, because at the time I believed they were going to carry out the threats. I thought I would never be able to protect them.”

The torture had been going on for five days when a kidnapper approached him and said: “We have some good news and bad news. The good news is that you’re getting out of here. The bad news is that you’re going out in a f***ing box.”

With that he put a semi automatic pistol to his head.

He blacked out and woke to a man saying: “This might hurt a little” as he sliced off his ear with a craft knife.

The paramedic who found him said it was the worst injuries he had seen in a 30-year career.

Wilson who runs Paul Wilson Transport, a frozen food distribution and van courier firm, was charged with unlawfully taking or carrying away Anthony Joy against his will by force or fraud

Judge Clement Goldstone, QC said of Wilson: “Clearly he was trusted by very very heavy criminals to do their bidding and facilitate the kidnapping of Mr Joy. Because he was present when the violence started he must have known or realised that Mr Joy was at risk of a very serious beating if not the purpose and extent of the torture to which he was subjected.”

Paul Wood, defending his client, who admitted kidnap, claimed the father-of-three was ‘sorry’ and added his Filipino wife had now left him,.

But Judge Clement Goldstone, QC, said: “You were sufficiently close to his kidnappers to be able to influence them to end his ordeal.

“What you said to them only you and they know but it was sufficient for them to begin preparations for releasing Mr Joy but not before he had been threatened with being shot, not before he was cleaned up, not with warm water and disinfectant but with bleach and a scrubbing brush causing more excruciating pain.

“The parting shot of his captors was to bind him by his knees, elbows and wrists whilst his right ear was sliced off before it was taped to his head with a sponge.

“You have ruined his life physically. You have ruined his life mentally. He lives in constant pain and has to disguise his appearance. He hates the angry, depressed, heavy smoker and drinker he has become. You bear a very heavy responsibility and must pay a heavy price for your involvement in this offence.”

Those who meted out the torture, Liverpool Crown Court heard, were still at large.