Call for rapist to spend life inside

ADELAIDE: A European backpacker, who was kidnapped and raped in an old pig shed in South Australia, says she thought she would die there.

The 26yearold called for her attacker never to be released in the District Court in Adelaide on Friday. Gene Charles Bristow was earlier this week convicted over the February 2017 ordeal.

‘‘What happened to me was really horrible, terrifying and deadly,’’ she said in a victim impact statement read by a prosecutor.

‘‘I was afraid I would never see my family again because I thought I would die in Australia.

‘‘I tried not to think of them because it was just too painful but it was because of them that my instincts to survive kicked in.’’

The woman said she had suffered lasting psychological and physical impacts and does not think Bristow should ever be released from jail.

‘‘I would never want anyone else to ever have to go through what I went through,’’ she said.

‘‘Not only did he take my clothes and belongings but also my freedom, my mind, my family and my friends. I felt so powerless.’’

She said she was once happy confident and independent but hardly left her house in the year following the incident.

‘‘When I arrived back (home) after what had happened, I was not the same person I used to be,’’ she said.

‘‘Sometimes I think it is a curse to be born a woman — I think we are not safe at all.’’

A jury returned the guilty verdicts against Bristow on Monday after deliberating for about three hours at the end of the monthlong trial.

The 54yearold was convicted of one count of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of rape, two of indecent assault and one of attempted rape.

The charges stemmed from a Gumtree advertisement the woman posted in search of temporary farm work.

Bristow offered her a job and, after picking her up from a Murray Bridge bus stop, took her inside a disused pig shed on his property at Meningie, southeast of Adelaide.

There he bound her hands and feet and chained her to the ground.

He raped her and threatened to shoot her if she tried to escape before she managed to raise the alarm using her laptop.

Bristow drove her back to Murray Bridge the next day.

The farmer helped her check into a motel and left her there.

Judge Geraldine Davison remanded Bristow in custody until further sentencing submissions later this month. —

❛ Not only did he take my clothes and belongings but also my freedom, my mind, my family and my friends. I felt so powerless