Sydney - The sentencing of nine Aborigines who pleaded guilty in a gang rape of a 10-year-old girl was being questioned after none of the men and boys were sent to jail and the judge said the victim "probably agreed" to sex. The Cairns District Court did not record convictions against six teenagers and gave suspended sentences to three older males over the 2005 rape at Arukun on Cape York in far-northern Queensland.
"The girl involved was not forced, and she probably agreed to have sex with all of you," Judge Sarah Bradley said at an October 24 sentencing.
Queensland Attorney General Kerry Shine said he would appeal the sentence. "I'm truly horrified by the circumstances of these offences," he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was "disgusted and appalled" that the perpetrators had been effectively let off after admitting a serious crime.
Aboriginal academic Boni Robertson condemned the sentence, saying "it's allowed perpetrators to think that if you can come up with a defence that 'she asked for it' or 'she condoned it' then that gives them a sense of leniency."
Others have called for the immediate dismissal of the judge.
