Australian man gets 10 years in jail for raping, kidnapping British backpacker

An Australian man who kidnapped and raped a British backpacker during a harrowing road trip hostage ordeal was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison, Australia's national broadcaster said.

Marcus Martin, 24, pleaded guilty to three counts of rape and one count of deprivation of liberty in October last year.

The Cairns District Court heard the man met the then-22-year-old backpacker — who cannot be named for legal reasons — at a dance party at Kuranda in the Far North Queensland rainforest in January 2017.

Martin, 25, appeared via video link in the Cairns District Court, after last October pleading guilty to three counts of rape and one count of deprivation of liberty over the one-month ordeal.

He watched the proceedings from a Brisbane prison, dressed in a white T-shirt, his face covered in tattoos and hands clasped for the entire three-hour sentencing.

In handing down sentence on Tuesday afternoon, Judge Dean Morzone declared Martin a serious violent offender, meaning he must serve at least 80 per cent of his sentence.

Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane told the court the couple "immediately" formed an intimate relationship but within two weeks, Martin turned violent, routinely "beating" her, raping her and cut up her British passport before embarking on a "harrowing" 1,600-kilometre road trip in an attempt to "isolate" her.

Martin's lawyer Joshua Trevino told the court the pair were in a "dysfunctional relationship" and that they were using drugs together.

The court heard the pair lived in Cairns for a few weeks, moving frequently between different hotel rooms and caravan parks.

Crane said on one occasion, Martin demanded to go through the victim's phone, accused her of being unfaithful and "gouged her eyes" with his thumbs and on another occasion, choked her with her own handbag.

"He threw away her birth control pills so she would never leave him because she would have his child," Crane said.

Crane said Martin's jealousy and "desire to control and isolate the victim" led to the road trip from Cairns to Mitchell in south-west Queensland, with Martin often forcing her to drive at gunpoint.

"She feared she would be murdered," Crane said.

"She tried to get the attention of other road users as they would drive along and also other service station customers to no avail."

Police rescued the women in March 2018 after petrol station attendees raised the alarm when she drove off without paying for fuel.

Authorities found Martin hiding in the back of the vehicle.

Australia is a popular destination for young backpackers, with around 600,000 touring the country every year.

They occasionally run into trouble, most famously in the early 1990s when seven were murdered by Ivan Milat in a series of killings that terrified Australia.

Milat is serving consecutive life sentences after the remains of two Britons, three Germans and two Australians were found buried in a forest southwest of Sydney.