Farmer who kept backpacker rape victim in pig shed, jailed
Bristow pleaded not guilty to the rape and abduction of a European backpacker. Photo: ABC
A South Australian hobby farmer will spend at least 12-and-a-half years behind bars for holding a European backpacker captive in his pig shed and raping her.
District Court Judge Geraldine Davison this morning sentenced Gene Charles Bristow, 54, to 18 years in jail with a non-parole period of 12 years and six months for his crimes.
In March a jury took three hours to find Bristow guilty of aggravated kidnapping, rape and indecent assault.
The court previously heard he held the 24-year-old female backpacker captive in an old pig shed on his farm at Meningie, about 140 kilometres south-east of Adelaide, for two days in February 2017.
Bristow lured the backpacker to his 40-hectare property by responding to an advertisement she posted on the website Gumtree looking for farm work.
While giving evidence, Bristow admitted to using a fake name while communicating with the backpacker online and said he lied about the farm’s location, telling her it was in Lameroo – about 150 kilometres east of Meningie.
He also falsely told her the farm was one of several in South Australia owned by a company called “Genesis Inc” and that there was a vacancy for a farmhand because a French girl had just left.
