Boy tells court how man bound his legs with sellotape and nailed him to ceiling

An eight-year-old boy has claimed a man who was looking after him bound his legs with sellotape and nailed him to the ceiling. The boy said that James Menzies also zipped him inside a bag of tools and hung it from a nail for 20 minutes. During the sellotape incident, he claimed Menzies punched him several times as he dangled upside down. The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told a jury at Livingston Sheriff Court the blows hurt him. He said he was freed by his 15-year-old brother after his alleged attacker went upstairs to the toilet. He said: “My brother took off the sellotape and I ran upstairs to my bedroom.”

He estimated he had been suspended upside down for a minute during the bizarre assault. The youngster, who gave his evidence via a video link, was aged between five and six when the alleged attacks took place. On the evening of the sellotape assault the boy said he was watching television with his brother. He told the court: “Jim just came up to me. He was punching me. He got some sellotape from my mum’s drawer and he tied up my legs with it. The sellotape went from just about my knee down to my foot.



“He got hammers and nailed me up. He hung me upside down from the roof in the hall. Jim’s friend Brian and my brother were trying to stop him. When Jim went upstairs to the toilet, my brother helped me down from the ceiling because I was tied up. He got the sellotape off me.” Two days later, he claimed Menzies shoved him into a bag and hung it from the living room ceiling. He said: “He put me in a bag and nailed me up. It had all his tools in it. I was zipped up inside the bag and hung up for 20 minutes. My back was getting jagged by Jim’s hammer.

“The hammer head made a big mark on my back – a cut. I found a way out with Jim’s tools. I managed to get out. The couch was underneath me and I just jumped out on to the couch.” The boy said he phoned his mother to tell her what had happened. “She came straight home and kicked Jim out,” he said. Menzies, 35, of East Whitburn, West Lothian, denies assaulting the boy by placing sellotape around his hands and feet, putting him in a bag, hanging the bag on the wall and repeatedly punching him on the body. The offences are alleged to have been committed at a house in West Lothian on various occasions between August 1 and December 10, 2010.