Marvel actress and husband sentenced to 8 and 14 years jail
Content warning: This article includes descriptions of child sexual abuse.
Actress Zara Phythian, who appeared in Marvel’s 2016 film Doctor Strange, has received an eight-year prison sentence for child sexual abuse offences.
The 38-year-old was found guilty by a jury last week of historical sexual abuse of a girl, aged between 13 and 15, and sentenced in the UK on Monday.
Her 59-year-old husband, Victor Marke, was also found guilty of jointly abusing the same girl, as well as indecently assaulting a second, and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Both Phythian and Marke will be on the sex offender’s register for life and will be referred to the disclosure and barring service to prevent them from working with children ever again.
Judge Mark Watson, who presided over the proceedings and handed down the sentences, said he believed Marke and Phythian’s abuse of the victim was pre-planned.
“I regard you as the driving force behind the abuse,” Judge Watson told Marke.
“Most people have held, and continue to hold you in high esteem. That’s due to the positive impact of your work [as martial arts instructors].
“Whilst that may help in mitigation, that is also why you were able to groom and corrupt the victims in this case and why you got away abusing them for so long.”
Marke reportedly cried during the sentencing and paced the court in a tracksuit, while Phythian reportedly smiled and waved to someone in the public gallery, though her face was said to be pale and tear-streaked, per The Mirror.
Judge Watson also said Phythian’s “deviance” was influenced by the hold Marke had on her from an early age - with the couple marrying when she was in her 20s after Marke had been her martial arts instructor from when she was a young teen.
During the trial, the couple denied the accusations they were jointly convicted of, and the survivor, who they abused before Phythian found acting fame, gave testimony from behind a curtain in the witness stand.
She said what happened to her, which the couple repeatedly told her not to tell anyone about, was her “deepest, darkest secret”.
“I think they saw a vulnerability in me and preyed on that,” she said in a police interview.
The second survivor of Marke’s assaults, said that he touched her leg after she accidentally touched his leg, before kissing her on the lips and neck and causing her feelings of confusion, according to her police interview.
At other times, Marke also kissed her, before having sex with her when she was 16.
Though the age of consent in the UK is 16, under section 15.3 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 a person over the age of 18 who is in a “position of trust” to someone under 18 - such as being a martial arts instructor - would be committing an offence by having sex with them.
Prior to sentencing, prosecutor Ahmed Hossain QC read out victim statements, where the survivor abused by Phythian and Marke said they “corrupted my development” and “robbed me of my innocence”.
“You showed you liked a very advanced naughty side that satisfied your urges,” she said in the statement via Hossain.
She also spoke of feeling intimidated and scared by the couple and stated that she didn’t want to keep being “[their] puppet”.
“I have become an adult now. All the pain, anger and disgust and shame I felt is now on you. Both of you.”
Image: Getty Images