A BRUTAL thug helped to kidnap and torture an innocent teenage boy just a week after being released early from jail.

Christopher Rennie teamed up with Anthony Wright to pounce on the 14 year-old victim, who had gone to his local shop to buy sweets.

The terrified child was grabbed off the street and hurled into a flat in Renfrew in January this year.

During an hour-long ordeal, he was blindfolded, battered and robbed, while one of the thugs told him: “I've killed before.”

They demanded he return home and steal £500 from his mum but the blood-soaked boy managed to escape their clutches.

Rennie, 27, and Wright, 23, are now behind bars after they were both convicted of abduction, assault and robbery.

It emerged after the verdicts that serial criminal Rennie was just back on the streets when he struck.

He had been jailed for 40 months in September 2016 after car-jacking a woman at a supermarket but was freed on January 19 this year – less than halfway through the sentence and exactly a week before attacking the boy.

This was despite a sheriff once stating Rennie had a “formidable” criminal record, including a string of assaults.

He was also on supervision after being released early.

Wright was on a two-year Community Payback Order at the time.

They each face lengthy jail terms when they are sentenced next month.

The High Court in Glasgow heard how the young victim was confronted by Rennie and Wright as he left a shop.

The boy – said to be “very shy” and a “young looking 14-year-old” – was described as an “obvious target” for the pair.

Prosecutor Jane Farquharson told the jury: “It is clear their motivation was to obtain money but, in their intoxicated state, greed overtook and they went so much further.”

The schoolboy did not give evidence during the trial.

He was instead questioned by lawyers at an earlier hearing, which was played to the jury.

The court also heard his police interview, in which he described the harrowing details of his ordeal.

The trial was told he was held face down and his pockets were rifled before being shoved into a nearby flat where Wright had been staying.

Rennie grabbed him by the throat and the boy was then hit on the legs with a weapon.

The victim recalled: “They threatened to stab me and one of the guys told me he had killed lots of people before.”

The teenager was blindfolded, shoved into a bath and struck on the face with a baseball bat, bursting his nose.

After being ordered to take off his Nike trainers, coat and scarf, the boy was made to wear a pair of women's boots before the duo followed him to his home.

He recalled: “They told me to go into my house and steal £500 from my mum.”

When the traumatised child noticed his front door was ajar, he sprinted inside to safety.

His mum recalled him being “very shocked” and “covered in blood.”

Police were alerted and the boy was later able to take them to the block of flats where he was held.

Rennie and Wright were eventually found at another flat in the town.

Police noted that Rennie still had the stolen trainers and scarf.

The trial heard claims the boy had “exaggerated” what went on.

Rennie and Wright even made up a story that the teenager – who had never taken drugs – had willingly gone to the flat to take legal highs.

Jurors heard the boy escaped any major injuries but did suffer a number of cuts and bruises.

Prosecutors said it was a “stroke of good fortune” he was not more badly hurt.

Judge Graeme Buchanan remanded Rennie and Wright in custody as sentencing was deferred for reports.