Stuart MacGill's harrowing retelling of 'humiliating' kidnapping ordeal
Stuart MacGill has given a harrowing account of his kidnapping last year in a revealing radio interview, detailing how his abductors stripped him naked and physically assaulted him during the ordeal.
The cricket world was shocked when news broke that MacGill had been abducted at gunpoint on the streets of Sydney last year, resulting in the arrests of four men.
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One of those men is believed to be the brother of MacGill's partner, Maria O’Meagher, with charges against all four still before the courts.
MacGill was kidnapped from the street in Cremorne, before being driven around Sydney for hours before he was eventually stripped of his clothes and savagely beaten in a field in Bringelly, before again being put in the car and released some 40 kilometres away in Belmore.
The former spin bowler did not contact authorities for a week after the incident due to a fear of retaliation, with MacGill explaining his movements at the time in an interview with SEN WA this weekend.
“It was not something you’d even like to happen to your worst enemy,” MacGill said.
“Later in the day, it was getting quite dark, I was bundled into a car.
“I didn’t want to get into the car, I said to them twice, ‘I’m not getting in the car,’ but then it became obvious they were armed, and they said, ‘We know you’re not involved, we just want to have a chat,’ then they put me in the car and I was in the car for an hour and a half.”
As the case will not come before the courts until October this year, the 51-year-old said there were a number of details he couldn't provide, but elaborated on what happened both during the kidnapping and his own actions afterwards.
Stuart MacGill sheds light on terrifying kidnapping ordeal
MacGill told SEN that he had little to no idea where he was throughout the entirety of the hours-long ordeal.
After he was eventually released by the assailants, MacGill said he and Maria worked together to secretly whisk him out of Sydney.
MacGill eventually holed up on Fraser Island for a period of weeks before eventually returning.
“I basically ran away for a month afterward,” MacGill said.
“Maria chucked me in the back of her car, I was in the boot, I got out of my unit, then I had a couple of mates who very generously put me up in hotels around Sydney for two or three weeks, and then I went away with (a friend).
“We ended up driving up the coast of New South Wales and through Queensland and ended up on Fraser Island, so all up I was probably away for six weeks or so.
“By the time I got home most of the guys had been arrested, which was good.”
MacGill's fear of the then unknown men was justified, given what unfolded just hours beforehand.
The Australian Test bowler said he had felt 'humiliated' by what had unfolded.
“I didn’t know where we were, I didn’t know where we were going and I was scared,” MacGill said.
“From that point, they stripped me naked, beat me up, threatened me and then just dumped me.
“That was over the course of maybe three hours out in the middle of nowhere in a little shed.
“I was scared, I was humiliated and I really didn’t know what was going to happen. Then they chucked me back in the car and dropped me in Belmore, and I didn’t really know where I was then either, to be honest.”
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