Roman Heinze has been found guilty of crimes against three backpackers. Photo / via Facebook
Roman Heinze has been found guilty of crimes against three backpackers. Photo / via Facebook
The Australian man who terrorised and assaulted three backpackers, and pursued a dozen more on the internet in an escalating pattern of predatory behaviour, can finally be named.
Roman Heinze, 61, showed no emotion in the Supreme Court on Thursday as The Advertiser successfully applied for his identityto be revealed after more than a year of court-imposed suppression orders, news.com.au reported.
Those orders - some of the most draconian in state history - were no longer needed after prosecutors dropped charges that would have seen Heinze stand trial for a fourth time for alleged sexual offending later this year.
With those charges dropped, it now falls to Justice Trish Kelly to sentence Heinze for his crimes at Salt Creek, as well as the indecent assault of another backpacker in his Hackham home two years before the Coorong attack that horrified the nation.
She will also sentence him for breaching a good behaviour bond over yet another assault upon a woman - one that was dealt with on its own in the Christies Beach Magistrates Court.
On Thursday, Justice Kelly was told that around that time, Heinze was subject to a bail agreement that specifically banned him from approaching women via the Gumtree website.
Heinze has been found guilty of crimes against three backpackers, each of whom he met through Gumtree.
Heinze has been convicted of a raft of offences including indecent assault, aggravated causing serious harm, and aggravated kidnapping.
The majority of those crimes were committed against backpackers from Brazil and Germany at Salt Creek in February 2016.
The man tied and sexually assaulted the Brazilian on the beach, and threatened her with a knife.
When the German tried to intervene, the man struck her four times in the head with a hammer and then repeatedly rammed her with his vehicle.
Images shown to the court of the Brazilian backpacker's bikinis, which were slashed off with a knife. Photo / AAP
The blood-splattered roof of Heinze's 4WD after it was seized by police following the Salt Creek attack. Photo / AAP
Those two backpackers on Thursday gave harrowing victim impact statements - the German said "you could not break me" while the Brazilian said she remained in terror and had to see her scars every day.
It subsequently emerged the duo were the 14th and 15th backpackers, respectively, that Heinze had targeted via the Gumtree website's ride-sharing section.
One woman, whose nationality is unknown, was sexually assaulted by Heinze prior to their departure in September 2014.
In the 2014 case, he had also agreed to drive the young woman interstate. On the day before they were due to leave, Heinze came up behind her and placed a hand over one of her breasts.
He then directed her to a bedroom where he pushed her down on to a bed but the woman fought him off.
Heinze confessed to that offending on the day his trial was due to begin.
Heinze will be sentenced next week but has indicated he will appeal his convictions for the Salt Creek crimes.
A second woman, from Japan, went with him to Salt Creek on an earlier occasion but he ended their trip early when she revealed she had posted photographs of him online.
