Meningie farmer Gene Charles Bristow, accused of abduction and rape of backpacker, searched eBay for shackles, jury told

A Meningie hobby farmer accused of the abduction and rape of a backpacker searched eBay for items including shackles on the same day she responded to his online advert seeking a farmhand, a jury has heard.

Accused Gene Bristow on his property in Meningie during a court visit. Picture: Brenton Edwards

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A Meningie hobby farmer accused of the abduction and rape of a backpacker has changed his sworn evidence, telling a District Court jury he could have persuaded his wife to allow the backpacker to stay in a spare room at his property.

The jury on Wednesday also heard he searched eBay for items including shackles on the same day the European woman responded to an online advertisement for farmhand work.

In evidence contradicting what he told the jury a day earlier, Gene Charles Bristow told the jury he thought he “may have been able to persuade” his wife to allow a farmhand to stay in a spare room at the couple’s house.

A day earlier, on Tuesday, Bristow had told the jury he did not tell his family he had hired a backpacker, who he said was “camping” on a couch in a disused pig shed, without electricity or running water, because they were “private” people who did not “let strangers into our lives very easily”.

The Meningie property of accused rapist and kidnapper Gene Bristow. Picture: Brenton Edwards

He had said he thought his wife “would be angry at me, the fact that I’d let an outsider in”.

On Wednesday, prosecutor Michael Foundas asked Bristow about his response to an earlier advert posted by another backpacker where he offered “single accommodation”.

“I could have easily been referring to a room in the house,” he said.

“Is your evidence now that you had a spare bedroom in your house and your wife would have been happy for somebody to stay there?,” Mr Foundas asked.

“At that point, I probably could have persuaded her, yes,” Bristow responded.

Bristow said he had asked the European backpacker if she was happy to camp on his property “and she agreed to it”.

“If she hadn’t agreed to it I would have said to my wife, she could have had the spare room or we could have got her a motel room.”

Later, he said he would have been prepared to pay for her to stay at a motel. The jury has heard he was unemployed and looking for work outside the farm at the time.

Mr Foundas said the two accounts were “inconsistent”, to which Bristow said “one probably contradicts the other to a degree, yes”.

Also on Wednesday, the jury heard Bristow had searched on eBay for items including shackles on the same day the backpacker responded to Bristow on Gumtree saying she was interested in the work.

About a month earlier, he had also searched for handcuffs, which he told the jury were to be a joke gift he planned to give his wife on Valentine’s Day and “not the kind of thing you could ever think about securing somebody with”.

The jury has previously heard allegations Bristow lured the woman to his property, bound her feet and hands and sexually assaulted her. Prosecutors said he also thrust a gun into the woman’s back and threatened to shoot her if she attempted to flee.

The jury has heard the woman had been able to escape her shackles and use her laptop to send for help after Bristow took her phone, which was later found in a water tank on the 40ha property.

He later returned her to Murray Bridge where she was found.

Bristow is charged with aggravated kidnapping, indecent assault and rape over the backpacker’s alleged ordeal.

In his earlier evidence, on Tuesday, Bristow had also claimed he had invited the backpacker to come to the house at any time, despite not telling his family she was on the property.

The trial, before Judge Geraldine Davison and a jury, continues.