British tourist says she considered killing rapist who held her hostage in Australia
‘If I missed and he woke up, he would turn round and do something worse to me’
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Your support makes all the difference.A British tourist who was held hostage and raped while backpacking around Australia has said she considered killing her attacker to escape.
Elisha Greer was 21 when she met Marcus Martin at a rainforest party near Cairns in January 2017.
She told Australian broadcaster Channel 7 that Martin initially “seemed fun”, but moved into her hotel room within days and started asking for money.
“He was so nice at first and then I don’t know what happened but he changed,” Ms Greer said, describing how Martin revealed a gun and forced her to drive him so he could rob a drug dealer.
High on crystal meth, he started beating her and destroyed the hotel room, later raping Ms Greer repeatedly and choking her until she passed out.
Ms Greer, now 24, said Martin broke her phone and threw away her birth control pills, adding: “Maybe he thought he could control me more … if I left I thought he would kill me.”
Just weeks after the pair met, Martin received threats on his phone and forced Ms Greer to drive him almost 1,000 miles south at knifepoint.
She told how he broke off from the journey to beat her, breaking her nose at one point, and that despite her face being “completely purple” no one offered her help or answered a plea she left in a hotel guest book.
“When he was sleeping, I did genuinely think about killing him with the knife but if I stabbed him or missed and he woke up, he would turn round and do something worse to me,” Ms Greer said.
After five days of driving, the pair stopped for petrol at a service station in the town of Mitchell and Ms Greer drove away without paying, after seeing a sign warning that staff would call police.
They were pursued and after police stopped the car, they found Martin hiding in the back and arrested him as Ms Greer was taken to hospital.
“He broke my nose, split my eyebrow, bite marks up [my] arms and on [my] face,” she said.
“I had two black eyes, he stabbed me in the neck with a key. There were handprints and bruises all over my body.”
Det Insp Paul Hart, of Queensland Police, believes Martin targeted his victim because she had a car and could “look after his every need”.
“It progressed to a relationship of complete and utter domination,” he added. “She had to endure the punishment that Martin was dishing out to her because the alternative was ending up dead.”
Unknown to Ms Greer, he already had been jailed and had a criminal history of drugs and violent offences.
He had been taken to Cairns, where they first met, by another woman who he had also controlled, beaten, threatened and held at knifepoint.
She had only escaped because her car was written off in a chance road accident and she could take Martin no further.
Ms Greer, from Liverpool, told of her ordeal as Martin awaits sentencing in Australia.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of rape and one count of deprivation of liberty at the Cairns District Court in October.
Martin had previously pleaded guilty to other charges, including assault occasioning bodily harm, wilful damage, and strangulation or choking.
Prosecutors dropped 10 other charges – eight of rape, one of serious cruelty to animals, and one of torture. He is due to be sentenced on 28 May.