Backpacker tells of horrific torture suffered in Melbourne hotel
A Dutch backpacker who suffered horrific abuse while held as the sex slave of a sadist for six weeks, has told of how she was beaten until she couldn’t see and was raped in a Melbourne hotel room.
The unnamed 23-year-old suffered flashbacks of the objects Alfio Anthony Granata tortured her with during her holiday in Australia that quickly turned into a nightmare.
Granata, 47, carved a cross into the forehead of his then-21-year-old victim with a knife and told her she was marked for death during the ghastly ordeal in a Melbourne hotel room in 2012.
He pleaded guilty to nine counts of rape and charges of theft, threats to kill and intentionally causing serious injury that left his victim with 54 bruises and abrasions.
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The Daily Mail reported in a victim impact statement, the woman told the Victorian court of the extent of Granata's sexual depravity.
How he chopped off her toenails and fingernails, stabbed her, sliced off her hair, and told her it would be all that was left once he killed her.
She said once she returned to Holland, she could not stay in her family home due to the flashbacks of torture she suffered.
She eventually moved, desperate to drive away the memories of the ordeal. She said she didn’t feel safe alone and could no longer use public transport or go out at night.
'I don't feel safe alone, can't use public transport, can't go out at night.
'I feel like something terrible will happen again. It just kills my enjoyment of life.
'I'm in a black hole of pain and sorrow... I'll never feel safe again.'
Judge Frank Gucciardo described Granata's crimes in particular as 'vile and repulsive behaviour which dehumanised your victim', adding: 'The victim was in constant pain... She was degraded and humiliated.'
The judge sentenced Granata, who is addicted to crystal meth, to a minimum of 13 years in jail.
The backpacker first met Granata and his partner at a mutual friend's birthday party in St Kilda in November 2012 where she agreed to go back to their room at Preston's Rydges Bell City hotel.
They quickly formed a friendship but Granata reportedly became paranoid that his girlfriend and the victim were conspiring to run off togethrer and became violent.
He held the victim hostage in the hotel room and her six-week ordeal began.
Granata had sliced the sign of a cross on her forehead, ordered her to bark like a dog, and burned her back with cigarettes, scars that she had desperately tried to cover with a tattoo.
Police reportedly attended the hotel room twice in the time the backpacker was being held captive to ask Granata and his partner about a car accident.
The victim escaped only after Granata’s girlfriend called police on Christmas Day 2012.
