Doctor Strange star and husband found guilty of child abuse
Warning: This article contains graphic content that some readers may find distressing.
Zara Phythian, star of Marvel's latest movie Doctor Strange, has been arrested alongside her husband Victor Marke , with the pair now facing jail.
The couple have been found guilty of sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl multiple times between 2005 and 2008.
According to The Sun, Phythian plied the teen with rum before making her perform a sex act on her husband, which occurred once or twice a month until the teen was finally able to free herself.
Jurors heard that the couple were working as martial arts experts at the time, and Marke had sex with the victim at least 20 times on different occasions.
Marke, 59, branded the allegations “paedophile sh*t” when quizzed by officers after his arrest, Nottingham Crown Court was told.
He said he was “really angry” to be accused, and told officers, “If you’re trying to say I’m a paedophile, I’m not.”
Marke claimed he had consensual sex with the teen when she was 18 – something his wife only discovered during her police interview.
Phythian, 38, told detectives she’d never had any form of sexual contact with the girl, calling it “bulls**t”.
Upon discovering her husband had revealed he’d had sex with her accuser, she said she felt “confused”, adding that she’d “liked to have known about it”.
The victim said she “would never have come forward” and planned to “die with my shame”, but as she recently became a mother, she said she felt she had “no option to speak my truth”.
Despite denying all allegations of abuse, the couple were found unanimously guilty by the jury.
Judge Mark Watson will decide later when the pair will be sentenced.
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