Australian Man Enters Guilty Plea in Grindr Torture Case

A 21-year-old defendant has pleaded guilty of brutally torturing an elderly Grindr date with shears, knives, a taser, an electric drill, and a hypodermic needle the victim was told contained blood with HIV.

Charlie Caire told a court in Adelaide, Australia that the hours-long torments were carried out in a drug-fueled frenzy, reports Australian news outlet ABC. He entered a guilty plea to "numerous offenses, including false imprisonment, aggravated blackmail and aggravated assault," the article said.

Caire, the story said, "set up a fake Grindr dating app profile, met an elderly man behind a Murray Bridge supermarket and lured him back to his brother's house in February 2020."

The brother, Brett, 37, is being tried separately.

In an earlier story on the case, ABC reported that the court was told that, "in what allegedly began as a consensual encounter, the victim took his clothes off, was blindfolded and handcuffed.

"The court was told Charlie Caire touched the man's penis, and that Brett Caire entered the room but the victim did not know he was there," the story added.

The torments visited on the victim "included being probed with a taser, electric drill, having a gas lighter held to his head, his fingers placed between [pruning shears] and his arm sliced with a knife," the most recent ABC article said.

The brothers threatened to kill the man and dump his body "where it would never be found," the court heard. During the torture, Brett Caire "demanded passcodes... to delete messages on Grindr and access his bank accounts," ABC reported.

"The defendant sought to make monetary gain by detaining and torturing an elderly man in quite a horrid fashion and this occurred over a sustained period of time," the prosecutor, Ben Strum, declared.

The brothers believed the victim to be responsible for sexually molesting the younger brother of a friend, and had set out to "teach him a lesson," the court heard. No such crimes involving the victim were substantiated, reports said.

Attorney Joel Horskins told the court that Caire "didn't necessarily plan to assault him in the manner he did," using the arsenal of instruments that were brought into play over four hours of torture.

Horskins went on to say that Caire "chose those things spontaneously... it wasn't necessarily a well thought out exercise."

Caire had descended into drug use following his father's death, the court heard, reported UK newspaper the Daily Mail, detailing that Caire had "spent over $10,000 in three months on methamphetamines and blew his entire savings."

"He had not slept for six weeks, he had barely eaten," Horskins said of his client, going on to add that Caire "was in a drug frenzy, clearly not thinking at all."

Caire's attorney said that his client is "determined to not let this offending define him," the report said. "He still wants to make something of himself."

Caire could receive a life sentence, reports said.