District Court releases exhibits showing filthy shed in Meningie where Gene Bristow kidnapped and raped a European backpacker
Strewn with rubbish, filthy bedding and shackles — this is the squalid kidnapper’s lair where a European backpacker was held captive for two days and raped by hobby farmer Gene Charles Bristow.
Behind the Scenes
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The terrifying conditions a European backpacker was forced to endure in hobby cattle farmer Gene Charles Bristow’s disused pig shed at Meningie can be revealed for the first time.
It was here the backpacker thought she was going to die — shackled to this dirty couch tucked away in the corner of the shed, over 100m away and out of sight from the main residence on Bristow’s 40ha Meningie property, in February 2017.
The couch sits on top of a grate and is surrounded by a mess of hay and rubbish. Other photos show the couch covered with hay and a chicken coop, which Bristow had placed on top in an attempt to hide his crimes.
District Court Judge Geraldine Davison granted access to many of the evidence exhibits tendered after a jury on Monday convicted Bristow of six charges including aggravated kidnapping, indecent assault and rape.
Bristow, 54, lured the backpacker to his property, 150km south east of Adelaide, with the promise of farm work after she posted an ad on Gumtree.
He thrust a toy pistol in her back and restrained her with homemade shackles and cable ties in the disused former pig shed, out of sight of the family home where he lived with his family, for two days on February 9 and 10, 2017.
The woman was repeatedly sexually assaulted.
As she gave evidence last month, the backpacker, now 26, wept when she was shown the chains which police later found at the bottom of a well on the property, marked by two tyres stacked on top of each other.
“I was feeling like it wasn’t real, you know, you wouldn’t believe that something was happening like that,” she told the jury.
“I was feeling terrible and I would think about my family a lot … I thought I wouldn’t see them again …(I thought) I was going to die there.”
The exhibits include images of Bristow a day before his arrest with a full head of hair when he was pulled over by police who were searching for the backpacker.
Bristow had returned the backpacker to Murray Bridge after authorities launched a widespread search for the woman. She had used hooks kept in a unpowered fridge to briefly escape her shackles and accessed her laptop to alert family, friends and police in Facebook and email messages.
Bristow was arrested a day later, on February 11, 2017, his mug shots showing him with a freshly shaved head and wearing a light blue T-shirt which reads “Things I want: cows, calves, money for cows, more cows”.
The exhibits also included Bristow’s eBay purchases of the toy pistol and handcuffs he had claimed were purchased as a joke gift to his wife for Valentine’s Day.
Bristow faces life imprisonment.
He returns to court on Friday for a pre-sentence hearing.
Originally published as District Court releases exhibits showing filthy shed in Meningie where Gene Bristow kidnapped and raped a European backpacker
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