Torturer jailed

A Noble Park man, who bashed and tortured an intellectually disabled man to death, will spend at least 17 years in jail.
Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Curtain said the death of 22-year-old Christopher O’Brien, who had an intellectual age of 14, was brutal, callous and merciless.
During the trial the jury was told Dimitrios Likiardopoulos, 49, led an attack on Mr O’Brien, who was being “interrogated” over the theft of a missing mobile phone.
The court heard Mr O’Brien was put in a chair at Likiardopoulos’s home, hit on his spine and limbs with a hammer and forced to eat chilli flakes and drink poisons taken from under the kitchen sink.
Mr O’Brien died in the lounge room of the Noble Park house almost two days later.
The court was told Likiardopoulos then ordered that the body be removed. Mr O’Brien’s body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag in the Dandenong Creek, near Bangholme, on August 14, 2007.
Likiardopoulos was found guilty by a jury of murder earlier this year.
Justice Curtain sentenced Likiardopoulos to 20 years’ jail, and ordered him to serve a minimum 17 years.