Dutch backpacker held hostage as sex slave by Alfio Anthony Granata
A SADISTIC rapist who kept a Dutch backpacker hostage as his personal sex slave in Melbourne’s north slipped through police fingers twice during the horrific ordeal.
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A SADISTIC rapist who kept a Dutch backpacker hostage as his personal sex slave slipped through police fingers twice during the horrific ordeal.
Alfio Anthony Granata, 47, subjected the 21-year-old backpacker to six weeks of physical assaults, death threats, sexual abuse and mental trauma.
Holed up in a Preston apartment he forced her to have sex with him, beat her with a meat tenderiser, stomped on her head, and forced her to live and sleep undressed in a shower for days on end.
The woman was ordered not to speak, move or complain, and if she did she was beaten more.
He also threatened to have her parents killed at their home in Holland, telling his victim that he had killed 248 people and had global mafia connections.
Twice during the six week hostage period between November and December 2012 police attended at Granata’s room at Preston’s Rydges Bell City.
On the first occasion the fearful victim told police there’d been a fight but that everything was OK.
On the second occasion she was forced to hide while police quizzed Granata, and his then de facto partner Jennifer Peaston about a car accident.
Police did not enter the apartment on that occasion, with both Granata and Peaston speaking to them in the hallway of the complex.
Security at the Preston complex were also alerted to “distressed” noises coming from the apartment by neighbours.
Prosecutors today took more than 90 minutes to read a detailed summary of Granata’s brutal offending to the County Court.
He was originally charged with more than 100 offences, including 62 counts of rape, 94 counts of assault and 10 counts of threatening to kill.
But in a deal with prosecutors he has pleaded guilty to 16 charges including nine counts of rape, one count of intentionally causing serious injury and two counts of making threats to kill.
The court heard after meeting her at a birthday party in St Kilda Granata held his victim hostage and tortured her under the threat of death if she tried to escape.
He called her his “little slut” and a “maggot” and at times blindfolded her, attached her to a leash and forced her to act like a dog.
Her phone calls and internet activity were monitored, and she was forced to hand over her bank cards and computer to Granata.
On one occasion Granata armed himself with a kitchen knife and used the knife to scratch a cross into her forehead saying it meant she belonged to him and was “marked for death’’ for betraying him.
He told her he had killed 248 people but had never been caught because he was “very clean and precise’’.
The victim was told she and Peaston were going to be the next victims — “numbers 249 and 250’’.
The victim was punched in the face for talking out of turn, beaten with household objects and burnt with a gas torch lighter.
She was also banished to the shower after being raped or beaten (and) was often left to sleep on the wet shower floor naked.
The court heard the brutality was born out of a suspicion by Granata that the victim and Peaston were engaging in sex acts without him.
The victim was allegedly forced to smoke drugs and take part in sex acts with the couple. Many were videoed by up to eight cameras setup in the apartment.
Four DVDs full of those recordings were today tendered, but not played, in court.
On the day she was discovered, she had stabbed Granata while he was sleeping and then attempted to kill herself.
She was rescued by paramedics lying in a pool of blood.
Peter Chadwick, QC, for Granata, blamed his client’s “copious” ice use for his offending.
It said his drug use, that spanned 25 years, had sparked a paranoia that led to the offending.
Before that he had been caring and loving, he said.