Rape victim told: This is your grave

Andrew Korner | 1st July 2009

A WOMAN was allegedly raped at gunpoint before being dragged to the edge of a shallow grave in bushland near Lake Wivenhoe.

Detective Paul Malcolm at Logan's Inlet near Lake Wivenhoe, where a 24-year-old woman was allegedly raped at gunpoint.

Damian Dunlop

A WOMAN was allegedly raped at gunpoint before being dragged to the edge of a shallow grave - where she was warned she would be buried if she reported the attack to police.

Detectives discovered a crudely dug, waterlogged gravesite - barely 30cm deep and 1.8m long - in bushland near Lake Wivenhoe on Monday after the woman escaped her alleged attacker and raised the alarm.

The woman's terrifying ordeal began about 10am earlier that day, when she was confronted outside her home in Coominya, north-west of Ipswich.

Police allege a 44-year-old man, who was known to the woman, threatened her with a replica revolver before forcing her to get into a Ford station wagon, tying her up with zip ties and driving her to Wivenhoe Dam.

Ipswich CIB Detective Senior Constable Renee Hoile said the woman told detectives she was raped in bushland near Logan's Inlet, before being led through a barbed wire fence and another 50 metres of bushland to the site of a grave, which the man had dug earlier.

“She was threatened that she would be buried in this grave if she reported the rape to police,” Snr Const Hoile said.

The woman told police she was driven back to her home and set free, at which point she called for help.

Police arrested the accused man at an address in Logan later that night.

Detective Inspector Mick Niland said police also seized a replica revolver allegedly used in the attack.

The man was charged with two counts of rape and one count each of deprivation of liberty, stalking, assault with intent to rape, threatening violence and unlawful use of a motor vehicle.

He will appear in Ipswich Magistrates Court on August 5.