AAP General News (Australia)
12-11-2007
QLD: Call for DPP explanation on gang-rape case
BRISBANE, Dec 11 AAP - A child advocacy group has called on Queensland's chief prosecutor
to explain failures in the case of the gang rape of a 10-year-old girl.
The call came as the opposition queried why the girl was allowed back into a community
in which she had previously been gang raped.
Queensland Attorney-General Kerry Shine yesterday appealed the sentences given to nine
males who raped the girl in 2005.
Cairns-based District Court judge Sarah Bradley did not record convictions against
six of the attackers and gave three others suspended sentences, over the incident at the
indigenous Aurukun community on Cape York.
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Leanne Clare has declined to comment on the case
since it caused outrage across the country.
Hetty Johnston, founder of Bravehearts, said the DPP had failed to seek appropriate
sentences in the case and needed to explain her actions.
"The victim relies entirely on the DPP and when they throw the towel in even before
the case is argued then justice has not been done," Ms Johnston said.
"That appears to be what has happened in this case.
"The DPP must be held to account."
Queensland Liberal leader Mark McArdle said Mr Shine should release the DPP's sentencing
recommendations.
He said the Department of Child Safety also needed to explain why the girl - who reportedly
had been in foster care in Cairns - was allowed back into Aurukun where she had previously
been gang raped at age seven.
"We are talking about a child who has become a victim of one of the most appalling
criminal acts at the age of seven who was then returned to the same place by the Department
of Child Safety to be pack raped three years later," Mr McArdle said.
"This sort of sexual depravity and violence against anyone, especially children, is
abhorrent and utterly condemnable."
AAP pjo/cjh/jlw
KEYWORD: GANG ADVOCATES
2007 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.
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