Doctor Strange star and husband found guilty of string of child sex offences
11 May 2022, 13:41 | Updated: 11 May 2022, 15:00
Doctor Strange actress Zara Phythian and her husband have been found guilty of a string of child sex offences after jointly grooming and abusing a teenage girl.
Phythian, who featured in the 2016 Marvel movie Dr Strange and also runs a martial arts academy, was found guilty along with her husband at Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday.
She was convicted of 14 counts of sexual activity with a child committed between 2005 and 2008, when the victim was aged in her early teens.
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Jurors also convicted the 37-year-old's husband Victor Marke, aged 59, of the same 14 offences and indecent assault charges relating to another under-age girl he abused on at least eight occasions between 2002 and 2003.
Phythian, from Mansfield, who played "brunette zealot" in Doctor Strange, which starred Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role, denied being a paedophile.
Her husband, who is also a martial arts instructor, broke down in the witness box.
During the trial, jurors were told the abuse of the victim, who cannot be named, began when Phythian was in her 20s.
Phythian asked the girl, "Do you want to play dare?" and invited her to copy a sex act she had performed on Marke, who she got into a relationship with shortly before turning twenty.
The pair married in 2015.
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The victim told the court that Marke made threats against her and ordered her to film some of the abuse at the hands of the "Jekyll and Hyde" couple.
The victim was able to describe a Chinese calligraphy tattoo the actress has near her private parts, despite the actress denying having had any sexual contact with the victim.
The victim described how Marke pretended to be asleep before joining in what she believed was pre-planned abuse, alongside Phythian.
The victim was abused at least 20 times, with the offences continuing until she turned 16.
The couple were unanimously convicted by jurors following two days of deliberations.
After they were arrested in 2017, Phythian told police the allegations were "bullshit".
She had also suggester her victim may have seen her intimate tattoo when she was in a changing room.
Marke, of Ravenshead, Nottinghamshire, denied that he was attracted to girls aged in their early teens.
He was convicted of four counts of indecent assault relating to a girl he abused when she was 15.
Phythian's counsel had asked the judge to allow her bail until sentencing to allow her to "sort out" unspecified matters.
Judge Mark Watson remanded both defendants in custody until next Monday, telling them their sentence would be "likely to be measured by a considerable period of custody".
