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Two police officers have told of their horror at discovering a woman's bound and gagged body inside a shipping container in an Australian backyard.

Queensland police sergeants Peter Venz and Sergeant Danny Rahe found the woman, later identified as Nikitah Beadman, who had been left to die at the Gold Coast property.

She had been suffering abuse at the hands of her boyfriend Robert Galleghan for more than a year.

Police said the abuse escalated three months after the relationship started in July 2011 and lasted until November 2012.

Officers then arrived at Galleghan's home and found a semi-naked Ms Beadman, who had been bound, gagged and tortured.

Police filmed the scene inside the trailer as evidence, as they feared Ms Beadman may not survive the ordeal.

"When the doors opened we've seen the trolley, like a fridge loading trolley, and we could see a body strapped to it" Sergeant Rahe said.

"That's when we went inside and probably saw the most horrific thing we've seen."

"My heart actually sank. It was evil and depraved what I saw.

"We were getting no movement out of her, we were getting no response out of her."

Sergeant Venz added: "She had a blue yoga mat strapped around her head with wire and she was wired all the way down the shopping trolley.

"The wire was so tight it was just cutting into her skin."

Sergeant Venz found tools to remove the wires in Galleghan's kitchen, and the pair managed to free Ms Beardman.

Ms Beadman said she recalls the moment the officers came to rescue her.

"I remember them apologising to me, she said. "They didn't think I was going to make it and there was wire inside of me.

"It was more of a torture way so I couldn't have kids."

And she said she is still living in pain from her brutal treatment in November 2012.

"I have got a lot of injuries still now," she said.

"I have got a twisted backbone and two rotated ribs, that in any sort of movement or any sort of exercise could pierce one of my lungs; I have got multiple sprains all through my back; I have got sciatic nerve damage; I have also got nerve damage in my right arm, that I still couldn't use for a year-and-a-half after - which was from the wire."

Galleghan was later apprehended and charged with torture, common assault and threatening violence.

He was been sentenced to eight years jail but could be eligible for parole in less than three years.