A 54-year-old Australian farmer, Gene Charles Bristow, was convicted for the abduction and rape of a 24-year-old Belgian tourist, Australian media report on Monday. The man was accused of holding the young woman for two days in an unused pigsty where he raped her several times.

Bristow, from Meningie (150 km south-east of Adelaide, Southern Australia) was charged with abduction with aggravating circumstances of rape and sexual assault.

The Adelaide District Court jury convicted Bristow on all accounts after three hours of deliberation.

The facts date back to February 2017. The young woman, staying at that time in Australia, had placed an advert indicating that she was looking for a job on a farm. The accused had responded favourably and had accompanied the Belgian from Murray Bridge to his farm in Meningie.

The man then sequestered the young woman in an old pigsty located several hundred yards from the house he shared with his family.

The individual would have tied the young woman’s wrists and ankles, and forced her to undress under the threat of a fake weapon. The girl had been chained and left alone before the man returned several times to sexually assault her.

During her captivity, the young woman, whose name was not revealed, had managed to use her computer to send distress messages to her family, friends and police.

When the police had begun searching in the vicinity of Meningie, the farmer had released his victim and brought her back to Murray Bridge.

Bristow denied all charges. According to him, the woman left because the working conditions were too difficult for her. The man’s sentence will be determined at a later stage.

The Brussels Times