Actress and husband of Doctor Strange sentenced on charges of child sexual abuse

An actress and her husband have been found guilty on a series of child sex charges after abusing and grooming a teenage girl together.

Zara Phythian, who appeared in the 2016 Marvel film Doctor Strange and also runs a martial arts academy, was found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court on 14 counts of sexual activity with a child aged 13 to 15 committed between 2005 and 2008.

Jurors also convicted the 37-year-old woman’s husband, Victor Marke, 59, of the same 14 felonies and indecent assault charges related to another underage girl he molested on at least eight occasions between 2002 and 2003.

Phythian, from Mansfield, denied being a pedophile during her two-week trial, while her husband, who is also a martial arts instructor, collapsed on the witness stand.

Jurors were told the couple’s joint victim abuse began when Phythian, then in his 20s, asked him, “Do you want to play a dare?” and she invited her to copy a sexual act that she had performed on Marke.

The victim, whose name cannot be identified, told the court that Marke threatened her and ordered her to film part of the abuse at the hands of the “Jekyll and Hyde” couple.

Phythian denied having sexual contact with the victim, who was able to describe a Chinese calligraphy tattoo the actress has near her private parts.

The victim, who came forward after a separate complaint in 2016, described how Marke pretended to be asleep before joining in on what she believed was pre-planned abuse along with Phythian.

She was abused at least 20 times and the crimes continued until she was 16 years old.

Jurors unanimously convicted the couple after deliberating for two days.

Marke was also convicted of four counts of indecent assault related to a girl he molested when she was 15 years old.

In police interviews after the couple’s 2017 arrest, Phythian, who was tried under her married name of Marke, told officers the allegations against her were “nonsense.”

During four interviews about the claims against him, he also suggested that his now-adult victim may have seen his intimate tattoo when he was in a locker room.

In her statement in court, Phythian described how she was given the opportunity to star in movies after being “seen” in a martial arts competition in the United States.

He told the jury that he runs a production company, has his own sportswear brand and that he had formed a relationship with Marke when he was 19 years old.

Phythian’s film career peaked in 2016, the court heard, when she auditioned for and landed the role of a “brown fangirl” in Doctor Strange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role.

Marke, from Ravenshead, Nottinghamshire, denied that he was attracted to girls as a teenager.

He repeatedly collapsed on the witness stand when he denied sexually touching one victim and said the other accuser had performed oral sex on him when he was drunk and she had just turned 18.

He told the jury: “There were no excuses. I have apologized to my wife.”

He also rejected the prosecution’s claims that he and Phythian had “encouraged threesomes” when their victim was 13, 14 and 15 years old, telling the jury: “It’s not reality at all.”

Following Wednesday’s verdicts, Judge Mark Watson kept both defendants in custody until next Monday, telling them their sentence “will likely be measured by a considerable period of detention.”

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