Marvel actress and husband facing lengthy jail terms for abusing girl, 13
Jury told 14 offences took place over three years and that a second teenager was also abused
AN ACTRESS who starred in a Marvel blockbuster has been found guilty of grooming and sexually abusing a teenage girl, along with her husband.
The couple, who will be sentenced at a later date, were warned they face substantial prison terms.
Zara Phythian, 37, who featured in the 2016 Marvel movie Doctor Strange with Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton, was convicted of 14 counts of sexual activity with a 13-year-old between 2005 and 2008.
Her husband, Victor Marke, 59, with whom she runs a martial arts academy, was found guilty of the same 14 offences and four additional charges of indecent assault on another teenager.
Phythian wept as the verdicts were handed down at Nottingham Crown Court. They met when she was aged 14 and Marke was 37, and went public with their relationship five years later when his previous wife left him. At the time, he was considered to be one of Britain’s leading martial artists and was head of the World Congress of Martial Arts Association.
Phythian admitted their relationship caused something of a stir at the time but denied being infatuated with him.
She has said she got her first movie break after being spotted at a martial arts competition in the US.
When she landed the role of Brunette Zealot in Doctor Strange in 2016, she was described as enjoying “unprecedented personal and professional success”. She has also starred the martial arts movie Tribal: Get out Alive, and another due out this year.
The court heard she runs a martial arts school in Mansfield and owns an entertainment and production firm and a clothing brand.
She was arrested alongside her husband in 2017 after a woman alleged the couple repeatedly sexually abused her from the age of 13.
The victim described how the couple plied her with rum, before Phythian invited her to play a game of “dare”, asking her to copy a sex act she performed on Marke.
In her evidence the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described the couple as being like “Jekyll and Hyde” and said they had threatened her and forced her to film some of the abuse.
She said they had abused her once or twice a month from 2005 and that Marke had had sex with her on at least 20 occasions.
Phythian denied the allegations, but the victim was able to describe in detail a tattoo that the actress has in an intimate area of her body.
The victim told the court: “I just did whatever they asked me to do. I just felt like there was no way out. They told me not to say anything.”
Marke, who repeatedly broke down in the witness box, denied that he was attracted to girls aged in their early teens.
He also rejected prosecution claims that he and Phythian had “encouraged threesomes” when their victim was between the ages of 13 and 15, telling the jury: “It’s not the reality at all.”
Phythian denied all the allegations, telling the court: “I am not a paedophile, or a rapist. Nor is Vic.”
But, after deliberating for two days, the jury unanimously convicted the couple.