Australian gets 10 years for rape and kidnap of English backpacker
AN AUSTRALIAN who kidnapped and raped a British backpacker and forced her to drive for weeks through the outback at gunpoint has been jailed for 10 years.
Cairns District Court in Queensland was told Marcus Martin repeatedly assaulted Elisha Greer, from Liverpool, after meeting her at a party in January 2017.
After he raped her, she said she was forced to drive her attacker’s car with a gun at her head.
Her ordeal continued on a 1,000mile journey across Queensland. Lawyers said the violent, obsessive and jealous Martin routinely beat and terrorised Miss Greer, gouging her eyes with his thumbs and almost choking
‘He didn’t seem like a psycho to say the least. He just seemed like a normal guy at the time’
her with her own handbag.
Martin seized and destroyed her British passport in a further attempt to isolate and control her, the court heard.
Miss Greer was finally rescued after driving off from a petrol station without paying for fuel in the small outback town of Mitchell, west of Brisbane.
Staff, who later said that the young woman had been “crying and shaking”, called the police. Martin was found hiding in the back of his four-wheel drive vehicle when it was stopped by officers on the remote Warrego Highway.
Last October, Martin pleaded guilty to three counts of rape and one of kidnap.
Miss Greer needed hospital treatment for injuries, including facial fractures. At the time, investigators said the Briton was lucky to be alive. “We have potentially saved this young girl’s life,” said Det Insp Paul Hart, from Queensland police.
“Given what’s happened to her, the extent of what’s happened and over the period of time, anything may have transpired.”
In handing down sentence in Cairns, Judge Dean Morzone said Martin, 25, would be classified as a serious violent offender, who would serve at least eight years in prison.
“He didn’t seem like a psycho to say the least. He just seemed like a normal guy at the time,” Miss Greer, 24, told Australia’s Channel 7 news earlier this year. “I thought he would kill me.”