A prosecutor says a Polish nanny deliberately drove her car into the path of a truck in a bid to take her own life after being violently raped in Queensland.

April 22, 2020

A Polish national deliberately drove her car into the path of a truck to end her life after being bashed and raped while walking in a Brisbane park.

The 24-year-old nanny died three months after being violently attacked by Travis Alexander Manwarring, 31, in November 2016, prosecutor Steve Kissick says.

“The (crash investigator) does not draw the ultimate conclusion that it was suicide,” he told the Brisbane District Court on Wednesday.

“It is my submission that this court can find that her death was a result of suicide.”

Mr Kissick said the woman died instantly after her Toyota Yaris collided with the truck on a straight section of road in good driving conditions.

She did not leave a suicide note but the court heard she had entered a “dark” space following the attack.

During sentencing submissions, Mr Kissick said Manwarring violently assaulted the woman while she was out for an evening walk in Petrie.

Police found a bloody scene after the attack, along with Manwarring’s belt and the woman’s shoes.

“He beat her and … simply had his sexual urges satisfied while she was unconscious,” he said.

“It’s a horrendous physical act of violence.”

“After the attack, he thought she was dead, she was in such a state,” he said.

Photos submitted to the court showed the woman’s blackened and bruised face.

She also suffered a broken nose and defensive wounds to her hand.

She required surgery for head and facial injuries before returning to Poland suffering memory loss in relation to the attack.

Manwarring was convicted after a four-day trial but says it was consensual sex gone wrong.

Defence lawyer Damian Walsh said the pair had spoken numerous times before coming together at the park but the court heard the woman barely spoke English.

Mr Walsh said it was an “unusual” incident in which Manwarring struck the woman in the head three times after some of his sexual advances were rejected.

But he rejected Mr Kissick’s assertion that Manwarring had raped the woman while she was unconscious after violently assaulting her.

Mr Kissick said this was a “self-serving invented” account to “rid himself of the offences he had committed against the young woman”.

He argued Manwarring should be imprisoned for 16 years.

The sentence will be imposed at a date to be fixed.