Member of the notorious ‘Colt’ incest family is granted bail

A member of the notorious Colt family has been granted bail after she complained she was sexually assaulted in jail.

Martha Colt, 43, was among 40 adults and children from the same family who were found living in squalor on a farm in Boorwa, western New South Wales in 2012.

Police handed 12 children, who are allegedly inbred, into care. 

Martha was arrested in April 2018 and charged with lying to the police. 

Betty Colt is pictured being led out of court in 2014 after being jailed for at least nine months for trying to kidnap her sons 

She was placed on remand in Mary Wade Prison in Lidcombe but has now been released. 

Her bail hearing at the Supreme Court, where she appeared with her arm in a sling via videolink, was told she had been repeatedly attacked and once sexually assaulted, reported the Daily Telegraph.

Prosecutors said Martha should not be released because she may try to coerce witnesses ahead of her trial in February.

But Justice Helen Wilson ordered her to be freed on $2,000 bail.

Martha will stand trial with three other female Colt members, who have already been granted bail.

Four male family members are behind bars awaiting a separate joint trial next year. 

Police came across the Colt family’s farm in 2012 after a child was overheard at primary school saying her sister was pregnant and the father was one of her brothers.  

DNA tests performed on all members of the family allegedly uncovered the evidence of long-standing incestuous relationships.

The farm where the family lived was lacking in hygiene and many of the children had difficulties with speech. 

The farm where the family lived was lacking in hygiene and many of the children had difficulties with speech

This is the Colt family home that was raided by police in 2012 

Few knew how to use toilet paper and many had ‘warped’ ideas about sex.

In April 2018, the matriarch Betty Colt was arrested alongside family members Rhonda and Martha, Charlie and Roderick, Rhonda’s son Cliff and Betty’s son Derek and daughter, Raylene.

Betty Colt is charged with five counts of making a false statement and perverting the course of justice.

Her sisters and daughter are charged with making a false statement amounting to perjury.

The four male Colts – Betty’s two brothers and two sons – who are all aged between 29 and 49, are charged with incest, indecent assault of a person under 16 and sexual intercourse with children under 14. 

The family have been given court-appointed pseudonyms to protect the children’s identities.  

COLT CASE: INSIDE THE CAMP THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD

A three-person tent where members of the 38-strong Colt family lived up until July 2012

The discovery of generations of an allegedly incestuous family living in squalid conditions in rural New South Wales six years ago revolted Australia and stunned the world.

The 38-member ‘Colt’ clan was found crammed into rundown caravans, sheds and tents in the state’s south in mid-2012 after a conversation about family sex was overheard in a school playground.

Authorities removed 12 illiterate and malnourished children from the camp, including five of Betty Colt’s children, and placed them into care. All but one were allegedly inbred.

It was described at the time as the worst case of incest uncovered in Australia. 

‘I’ll never get over what I saw there,’ one female police officer later reportedly told a colleague.

The children told officials of generations of alleged sexual abuse by adults on children and siblings on siblings, involving boys and girls as young as 12. 

Officers swooped on the remote property after one of the children was overheard saying his sister was having a baby. 

But the family did not know which brother had fathered the child.