Hospital missed the chance to end Briton’s outback ‘rape’ ordeal
‘Significant level of violence’
A BRITISH backpacker kidnapped and raped in the Australian outback was seen by hospital staff at the start of her ordeal, it emerged last night. When the 22-year-old woman walked in with a deep gash on her forehead, medics are understood to have asked her whether it was the result of domestic violence.
But she refused to answer and left Cairns Hospital as soon as the wound was treated. The revelation raises the possibility she could have been saved before being physically and sexually assaulted during a 900-mile road trip across Queensland.
Tattooed Marcus Martin, 22, appeared in court earlier this week charged with four counts of rape, eight counts of assault, four counts of strangulation and two of deprivation of liberty. He is also facing drug charges.
Last night a friend said he had problems with drug addiction and ‘a ton of anger stuck in his head’.
The Australian drifter spent six months in prison in 2013 for bashing a delivery driver over the head with a plank of wood to steal a £12 pizza while high on LSD.
He had been taking the drug at a party with three friends in Cairns when they hatched a plan to rob the delivery driver. Martin, then 18, attacked when the man asked for payment for the pizza. He is understood to have another previous conviction in Cairns as a 16-year-old.
The backpacker, a hairdresser from Liverpool, began a relationship with Martin after they met at a party in Cairns. But within days he became ‘obsessive and clingy’.
Martin is accused of repeatedly raping, choking and beating her during a journey from Cairns to the tiny rural town of Mitchell.
Police are investigating whether her facial injury resulted from an assault by Martin. The woman was approaching the end of her twoyear stay in Australia when she met her alleged attacker.
Detectives initially said they believed the offences began at the start of January, but now say they took place across five weeks.
The first incident, in which the woman was raped, strangled and assaulted, took place on February 3, a week after she met Martin.
In mid-February, she was gagged with a towel and threatened with punishment if she tried to leave a hotel in Cairns.
After forcing her to drive, Martin destroyed her passport and stole her wallet and credit cards, it is alleged. He hid under a canopy in the back of his Mitsubishi Pajero whenever they approached a town.
She was beaten so savagely that she suffered facial fractures. A detective said she had been subjected to a ‘significant level of violence and catastrophic offences’.
The victim was rescued on Sunday when a petrol station worker spotted her injuries and alerted police. She was treated in hospital and is being comforted by friends and family in Brisbane.
Friend Todd Leahy, 27, said: ‘I was trying to call her for weeks but her phone was not responding. Her attacker smashed it, apparently.’
Martin was denied bail. He will appear in court again on May 23.