Asia-Pacific News
Anger after gang rapists freed in Australia
Dec 11, 2007, 5:07 GMT
Sydney - Heads are expected to roll in Australia after nine Aborigines who pleaded guilty to the gang rape of a 10-year-old girl were set free by a court in far-north Queensland.
There were calls Tuesday for the judge and the crown prosecutor to be sacked after a transcript of the proceedings revealed the former said the girl 'probably agreed' to sex and the latter characterized the 2006 pack rape at Aurukun as 'consensual sex.'
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared he was 'disgusted and appalled' that the perpetrators had effectively been let off.
Queensland University academic Boni Robertson and other Aboriginal elders demanded the dismissal of Judge Sarah Bradley and Crown Prosecutor Steve Carter.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh announced a challenge in a higher court to the leniency of the sentences and ordered a review of court proceedings in sexual assault cases in remote Aboriginal communities in far-north Queensland.
'I want to satisfy myself this is not part of a broader sentencing trend that reflects the lower standards for those communities,' Bligh said.
Bradley didn't record convictions against six teenagers and gave suspended sentences to three older males. 'The girl involved was not forced, and she probably agreed to have sex with all of you,' she said at an October 24 sentencing.
The transcript quoted Carter as saying that 'it was a form of childish experimentation, rather than one child being prevailed upon by another.'
One of the men was 26 and the girl, who had also been gang raped by five juveniles at Aurukun when she was seven, contracted the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea in the encounter.
She was taken into care after the first gang rape in 2003 because it was deemed her alcoholic mother couldn't look after her. But she was taken from her white foster family last year and returned to Aurukun. Just weeks later, she was gang raped again.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
These people are animals and should be shot. The judge should be given a jail sentence for such an appalling decision.
There is obviously some sort of sick behaviour being done in these communities. This wee girl has been attacked by a gang on at least two occasions and she is only 10 years old.
Child Protection Officers need only apply the simple rule ' Would you leave your child with these people?' yet they took the wee girl out of care and then she was attacked again.
I am disgusted by these sick animals.
I find this case almost unbelieveable. The child was also gang raped at 7 yrs. I wonder if that loopy judge is a mother herself. Or the equally irresponsible prosecuter is a father.
What is this world coming too, when this crime is allowed to go un-punished. It makes me sick to the stomach to think what that little girl went through.
The comments above are abosolutly correct, this world has a warped sense of what is right or wrong, i think sickos like this have no place in our society.
I cannot believe this. The fact that she is 10 means it doesn't matter if she consented or not. Every one of them should get a long custodial sentence.
I believe that everyone reading these articals agrees this is horrable, immoral, and unacceptable. My thoughts are questioning why someone who was gang raped at age 7, removed from that environment, was then returned to the SAME environment, and subsequently gang raped again! The judge, the social workers, and the community leaders should be disgusted with themselves for allowing this type of activity. If the first gang rape happened when this girl was 7, it says alot that the community is still OK after three years that the community leader's children think that this is acceptable.
If I were the judge, ALL of the defendants would NEVER see the light of day again. Until the government of Australia steps in and takes control of these communities, this will continue to happen over and over (like it has already done)!!!!
I have only just seen this article and I am utterly disgusted to think that people of such a high status are allowing beastly behaviour to be ignored. Amongst our community, those in the legal system are considered to hold the most respected professions. This child should have been completly removed from the original location and mother upon the realisation of the first abuse to NEVER return, until she was old and capable enough of making her own decisions. Organisations like DOCs are also to blame as they target the innocent and reject the needy - a prime example.
The young men responsible for violating a naive and innocent child should be severly punished and their crimes recognised in order to prevent those monsters from reoffending, as was said before a rapist or pedophile cannot be rehabilitated and it's sickening to think these creatures have commited, in my opinion, worse than murder and they roam free. In regards to all criminal activity the works of a pedophile and rapist are the lowest of all offenders and don't deserve to be granted an equal place within society. Such a cowdly, weak and disgusting attack.
Weak attempts to change our country.
page: 1
karyDec 11th, 2007 - 08:30:15
How do these people live with themselves? She was 10 years old. I am utterly disgusted that this judge - a woman no less - and prosecutor has basically condoned a crime. There is no ambiguity in the law, the age of consent is 16 in Australia, so even IF she had consented, that means nothing. When are attitudes towards sexual crimes, especially crimes against children, going to change. When will justice be true.
This is how people like Dante Arthurs are allowed to reoffend. To the child protection officers, how about checking your job description, and to the prosecutor and the judge, how about reading the constitution.
Why are women and children given so little value when it comes to sexual crimes. Pedophiles cannot be rehabilitated. Rapists cannot be rehabilitated. When is the law going to be truly effective in protecting us from these sickos. The young men in this case need to be punished so that they know what they did was wrong and that the rest of Australia gets that message too.
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