SYDNEY — An Australian man who kidnapped and repeatedly raped a British backpacker during a monthlong ordeal in the country’s Outback has been jailed for 10 years. Marcus Allyn Keith Martin, 25, had pleaded guilty in the District Court of Cairns, in the far north of Queensland state, to charges of rape and deprivation of liberty against the 22-year-old woman from Liverpool, England. Prosecutors told the court the pair met in Cairns in January 2017 and had begun a relationship. Police intercepted the pair after the woman drove off from a gas station in the town of Mitchell, 380 miles (600 kilometers) west of Brisbane, without paying for fuel. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that prosecutor Nathan Crane told the court Martin had tried to isolate the woman on their road trip, including by cutting up her British passport.

Source: Washington Post May 29, 2019 03:31 UTC