A British woman has spoken for the first time about being kidnapped and raped for two months by a tattooed drifter while travelling in Australia.
Elisha Greer was held captive by Marcus Martin after initially befriending him and forced to drive nearly 1,000 miles across the outback with a gun to her head.
Miss Greer, who was 21 at the time, met Martin at an outdoor party – known as a doof – on the outskirts of Cairns in northern Queensland in January 2017.
The hairdresser, now 23, said Martin – who has tattoos under his eyes as well as on his chest and arms – ‘didn’t seem like a psycho’ when she met him. In fact, she said he seemed ‘fun’ and ‘nice’.
Their relationship deteriorated over the next few days as he became ‘obsessive and clingy’. He then raped her in a hotel room in Cairns. He also smashed the furniture and flipped the bed over in a drug-fuelled rage. Miss Greer had no idea that he had already spent time in prison on drug charges.
Miss Greer, of Liverpool, told Australia’s Channel 7: ‘He started hitting me. Just hitting me and hitting me. He wrecked the whole room. Punched through the cupboards. I thought he would kill me.’
Martin, 24, confiscated her passport and she remained under his control for two nightmare months. When she found out he had a gun, he told her he had used it to rob a drug dealer, that people were ‘after’ him and that he had to leave town. From March 1, he made her drive through the outback in a white Mitsubishi Pajero that she had bought before she met him.
In the interview, which aired last night, Miss Greer said: ‘I was forced to drive the car with a gun to my head.’ She added that she knew he would kill her if she refused. Over five days, she drove 930 miles.
Miss Greer also endured endless beatings from Martin. She said: ‘He broke my nose, split my eyebrow, I had bite marks on my face, two black eyes and he had stabbed me in the neck with a key.
‘I had bruises on my skull and a mark on my back when he tried to put a key into my spine.’
She said she became so desperate that she contemplated shooting him in his sleep. But she dismissed that idea – worried about the consequences if she ‘missed’. Miss Greer told how, after raping her, Martin would often apologise and then cuddle her.
She managed to free herself from his clutches when they stopped at a petrol station. As he lay hidden in the car she saw a sign that read: ‘If you can’t pay, we will call the police.’ She walked out without paying and the police were summoned. After seeing her injuries, officers searched the car and found the kidnapper.
It later emerged that Martin had held another young woman captive six months earlier and also forced her to drive him around.
Now back home in England, she has decided to tell her story as she waits to hear how long Martin – who has pleaded guilty to rape and deprivation of liberty – will spend behind bars when he is sentenced later this month. He has also pleaded guilty to assault, choking, supplying dangerous drugs and wilful damage.
Survivor: Elisha Greer, 23, was kidnapped while travelling in Australia
Daily Mail