Australian killings highlight dangers of backpacker trail

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - As police remain baffled by the brutal death of 19-year-old British backpacker Caroline Stuttle in Bundaberg, north Queensland, last week, international attention has again been focused on the dangers of Australia's adventure trails.

Stuttle, a student with plans for a career in forensic medicine, was hurled 9m from a bridge to her death in the city made famous by its rum, after walking from a caravan park to a public telephone to call her boyfriend.

Although police have interviewed a large number of witnesses, taken DNA for testing and issued the description of a man believed to have earlier stalked Stuttle, Bundaberg police said yesterday that they had no firm leads in the murder.

With her friend Sarah Holiday, who has now flown back to Britain, Stuttle was two months into what has become a rapidly expanding trail for adventure backpackers, especially from the United Kingdom and Europe.

But the risks of life on the road far from home have also become more apparent, highlighted in a series of killings that first reached notoriety with the backpacker slayings committed by Sydney roadworker Ivan Milat, now serving a life sentence.

Milat tortured and killed seven young hitchhikers - two Australians, three Germans, Britons Joanne Walters, 22, and Caroline Clarke, 21 - after picking them up and driving them to Belanglo State Forest, southwest of Sydney. Another young Briton, Paul Onion, escaped Milat and was a key witness at his trial.

In June 2000, 38-year-old Robert Paul Long set fire to the Palace Backpackers Hostel in Childers, a small town about 320km north of Brisbane, killing 15 young travellers from Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Ireland and Japan. Long is also now serving a life sentence.

And in July last year, Peter Falconio, a 28-year-old Briton driving through the Northern Territory Outback, vanished after being stopped and abducted by an assailant yet to be found.

There remain no leads in Falconio's abduction and presumed death, although there has been speculation he could have died at the hands of a serial killer who may have also murdered at least three other people in the remote corners of the Territory.

Other killings and assaults on young travellers - such as the fatal beating of a British man in Sydney two years ago - have also gained widespread coverage abroad.

But new statistics released by the Australian Institute of Criminology show that Australia's rates of murder, robbery and assault are comparable with those of Britain, the United States, Northern Ireland and Canada.

Officials also said yesterday that, appalling as the murders of Stuttle and other backpackers were, the chances of young adventurers falling victim to homicide or serious assault remained low.

The most recent figures, for the year to June 2000, put the number of backpackers visiting Australia at more than 420,000 a year, accounting for about one foreign tourist in 10.

The British have been among the most enthusiastic backpackers - with numbers increasing by more than 40 per cent in two years to 131,100 - accompanied by about 148,000 Europeans, 42,500 Americans and 26,100 Japanese.

An Australian Tourist Commission spokeswoman said that backpackers remained among Australia's most resilient visitors, even after the September 11 terror attacks which hit the nation's other big markets.