TORONTO

A callous woman who watched her husband be tortured by her new boyfriend was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison.

“This is one of the worst cases of torture and abuse seen in Canada,” Justice John McMahon said as he passed sentence against the 32-year-old woman, who saw her spouse writhing in excruciating pain in the torture chamber of their Toronto apartment.

“There is not a part of the victim’s body from his head, ears, eyes, penis and feet that doesn’t cause him pain,” said McMahon, who subtracted two years and eight months for time already served.

No other Canadian abuse-torture case matches its sheer depravity and cruelty, McMahon said.

The wife, whose identity is covered by a publication ban, did nothing to end the brutality inflicted by her sadistic lover John Siscoe.

He poured lighter fluid on her husband’s genitals and lit aflame, straight pins were pierced through his scrotum and penis and lips, cartilage was pulled from his ears. He was stomped on with steel-toe boots, beaten with a hammer and sliced with razor blades, his gaping wounds either cauterized with a hot knife or sewn together crudely with needle and thread.

The victim, who also cannot be identified, was forced to sleep in a closet and lost 50 pounds. He suffered a fractured skull, punctured lungs and five broken ribs, McMahon said.

Siscoe and the woman have pleaded guilty to numerous charges including aggravated assault, sexual assault causing bodily harm and failing to provide the necessities of life.

Crown attorney Paul Leishman said the woman may be simple-minded, but she could have spared her husband’s agony by simply phoning the police.

She and her husband had met Siscoe in British Columbia. Siscoe quickly moved in and dominated their lives, pocketing their disability cheques, seducing the wife and suggesting they move to Toronto in September 2009.

The trio moved into a small, one-bedroom apartment. The good times ended after Siscoe, a recovering alcoholic, started drinking again. On Oct. 31, he used her husband as a punching bag.

Less than two weeks later, Siscoe broke the man’s jaw and threatened to hurt his elderly parents if he “ratted him out” to police.

The violence escalated over the next three months. The victim was in danger of dying if he hadn’t been rescued Jan. 19, 2010.