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The savagery of abuse

By Stephen Hagan - posted Thursday, 20 December 2007


Predictable outrage was aired on all media coverage of this extraordinary story from prominent Australians who are still coming to terms with this sickening crime: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd expressed his dismay; Queensland Premier Anna Bligh called for a full inquiry into all judgments of sexual assault cases in Cape York over the past couple of years; and respected Indigenous leaders; Grace Smallwood, Bonnie Robinson and Sam Watson called for the immediate resignation of Judge Bradley.

Commendably Attorney-General Kerry Shine, on advice from the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Leanne Clare, appealed the judgment.

In the days that followed Koch’s initial story there was further exposure of those complicit in this little girl’s case. The Courier-Mail revealed that the little girl in question was also the victim of serious sexual assaults when she was aged five and eight. The Australian produced transcripts of the sentencing on October 24 that revealed the Crown Prosecutor, Steve Carter, describing the gang rape - in which the girl contracted a sexually transmitted disease - as "consensual sex", saying: "To the extent I can't say it was consensual in the legal sense, but in the general sense, the non-legal sense, yes, it was."

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Mr Carter suggested a non-custodial sentence for all the accused, including the three aged 17, 18 and 26.

In his brief submission on sentencing to Judge Bradley, Mr Carter said the Crown would not be asking any more than "for some form of supervisory order, form of probation, or some similar order to that".

He added that there was no victim impact material that could be considered by the court. "My submission in relation to this particular offence (rape) is the same that I make in relation to children of that age - of similar or the same age - is to quote, well, they're very naughty for doing what they're doing but it's really, in this case, it was a form of childish experimentation rather than one child being prevailed upon by another," Mr Carter told the court.

"Although she was very young, she knew what was going on and she had agreed to meet the children at this particular place and it was all by arrangement, so for that purpose."

The day after Koch’s second successive front page story in The Australian on December 11 that exposed the Crown Prosecutor and his travesty of justice in this case, Carter, was stood down from his position pending an investigation by his department.

It was further revealed by Koch, who spoke to a senior departmental official, that two new social workers who were appointed to the north in recent years expressed the view that putting an Indigenous child with white foster parents was another stolen generation. Koch also added that these new social workers convinced the department with this rubbish and the girl was taken from Cairns to Aurukun - against the wishes of her mother who was happy with the arrangements with the white foster parents - back to where she was being abused previously and where she had contracted syphilis as a little child.

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Koch reported that the girl was constantly unsupervised in Aurukun, with the result that she was constantly raped.

After an internal Child Safety Departmental report into this case one of the officers was sacked and two others were suspended.

In a separate ruling in 2001 - that further demonstrates her incompetence to hold down her esteemed position - Judge Bradley imposed a wholly suspended jail term, without conviction, on a 17-year-old youth who raped his grandmother. The court was told the youth raped his grandmother while she was in a drunken sleep.

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About the Author

Stephen Hagan is Editor of the National Indigenous Times, award winning author, film maker and 2006 NAIDOC Person of the Year.

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