AUSTRALIA:A judge in Australia was facing calls to step down yesterday after she failed to jail nine males who admitted gang-raping a 10-year- old girl in an Aboriginal community in 2005, saying the victim "probably agreed" to have sex with them.
Sarah Bradley, a Cairns-based district court judge, gave suspended sentences and probation orders to three adults, aged 17 to 26, one of whom was a repeat sex offender, and six juveniles, aged 14 to 16.
The lenient sentencing was greeted with outrage and disbelief across Australia, which has been wrestling with the problem of child sex abuse in indigenous communities after a report, Little Children Are Sacred, earlier this year said the problem was widespread and endemic.
Kevin Rudd, the new Labor prime minister, said he was "appalled and disgusted" by the details of the case. Queensland's attorney general, Kerry Shine, will appeal against the judge's decision. Indigenous leaders said it sent a terrible message to vulnerable girls and women living in fear in indigenous communities.
"If this was a white girl in white suburban Brisbane . . . there's no way they would have walked out of court," said a child protection campaigner, Hetty Johnston.
Boni Robertson, an academic, called for the judge to step down while there was an inquiry. "It has undermined everything we have worked for over the last 10 years to get our women justice in this country," she said.
The assault happened in Aurukun on Cape York, which has a history of rioting and drunken violence. Some of the girl's attackers are said to be from prominent families in the area, while she comes from a less privileged background.
News of the sentences, handed out in October and early November, has already led to simmering tensions within the community.
Ms Bradley's handling of the case was revealed by Australian newspapers.
In passing sentence, she said that she accepted the girl involved "was not forced and . . . probably agreed to have sex with all of you, but you were taking advantage of a 10-year-old girl and she needs to be protected". She reminded the nine that it is an offence to have sex with a girl under the age of 16.
State premier Anna Bligh said all sexual offences sentences in Cape York during the past two years would be reviewed.