A South Australian man allegedly abducted and raped a backpacker after answering her Gumtree advertisement in search of farm work, a court has heard. Photo / 9 News
A South Australian man allegedly abducted and raped a backpacker after answering her Gumtree advertisement in search of farm work, a court has heard. Photo / 9 News
A South Australian man allegedly abducted and raped a backpacker after answering her Gumtree advertisement in search of farm work, a court has heard.
But Gene Charles Bristow, 54, insists the young woman's account is "an invention that simply did not take place".
Opening Bristow's trial on Tuesday, prosecutor Michael Foundas said the 24-year-old Belgian woman had made an online post on the popular website in search of temporary farm work in February, 2017.
Foundas said the ad was answered by Bristow, a pig farmer, who offered her work and accommodation at a company that does not exist.
Bristow picked the woman up from a bus stop at Murray Bridge and drove her back to his farm at Meningie, about 150km southeast of Adelaide, the court heard.
He is accused of taking her to a disused pig shed on the property, several hundred metres from the house he shared with his family.
Jurors heard he then allegedly bound her wrists and ankles, held a fake gun to her back and forced her to undress.
He allegedly told her he was "the nice one" working in collaboration with others, and that she had to be good and love him, or else "the others would come and they would hit her, cut her, mark her".
The court was told he chained her up and left her alone, before repeatedly returning to sexually assault her.
"Apart from trying to roll up into a ball by curling her legs up to her body, there was nothing she could do," Foundas told the jury, according to The Advertiser.
"Her hands were cable tied at the back, she was chained at the legs, she was naked and he had a gun. He held her there, captive, chained up, naked in an old, dirty pig shed on a remote property in the middle of nowhere."
The woman eventually managed to break free and use her laptop to send messages of distress to family, friends, SA Police and tour agencies.
Police officers conducting a dig at a Meningie property connected to the alleged kidnapping and rape of a Belgian tourist. Photo / 7 News
Foundas said she re-shackled herself because Bristow had threatened to shoot her if she tried to escape.
Jurors heard she was released by Bristow the next day when he checked her into a motel, and she was later discovered by police.
They also heard her mobile phone was found in a rainwater tank, with the fake pistol dumped in a paddock and the shackles at the bottom of a well near the pig shed.
According to The Advertiser, police also found cable ties, including one containing the DNA of Bristow and the victim, in a wheelie bin.
Bristow is facing charges of kidnapping, rape and attempted rape over an alleged plan described by the prosecution as premeditated and well thought out.
"The plan was to lure young female backpackers to his farm where the unlucky victim would be held against their will and sexually abused by him," Mr Foundas told the court.
That suggestion was rejected by defence counsel Nick Healy, who said the woman was never held against her will and there was no sexual contact between the pair.
The trial, before Judge Geraldine Davison and a jury, is expected to run for 10 days.
