Charges over backpacker rape
A German backpacker was allegedly lured to a rural property in Queensland and drugged, tied up and raped in a chilling attack.
Queensland police will allege the 20-year-old tourist answered an online job advertisement for a nanny based in the Stanthorpe area, near the Queensland-NSW border.
She caught a night bus to the area on August 13, 2013, and was picked up by a man who drove her around for about an hour.
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Police say the Brisbane man drugged the young woman with chocolate laced with the sedative zolpidem, which is sold under the brand name Stilnox, before taking her to a shed on a property 30km southwest of Stanthorpe.
The woman claims that when she woke up she was cable tied to a bed.
She said she was fed more chocolate and when she next woke up, at 1am on August 14, she was outside by the side of the road.
The terrified woman called her sister in Germany before managing to make her way to a property at Spring Creek where she was found at 7am that same day.
Details of the alleged kidnapping emerged after a 47-year-old Brisbane man was charged with a string of offences including kidnapping, rape, stupefying in order to commit an offence and deprivation of liberty.
He was refused bail in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
The court heard the man, a cleaner, was on bail for other charges when he was arrested on Monday.
Defence lawyer Nathan Hounsell said his client should be granted bail because the evidence was circumstantial and he’d never failed to front court before.
However, Magistrate Linda Bradford-Morgan said that after reading a police affidavit objecting to the man’s bail she was satisfied there was a strong case against him.
“I am of the view that there is an unacceptable risk of reoffending or failing to appear if (he is) placed on bail,” she said.
The case was adjourned until November 24.
Outside court Mr Hounsell said his client would strongly contest the charges.
“He is clearly devastated at the refusal of bail however until the matters are finished he will remain in custody,” he told reporters.