Child safety failed rape girl
11.12.2007
QUEENSLAND'S Child Safety Department knew that a 10-year-old girl had been gang-raped but did not report it to police, despite the girl also contracting a sexually transmitted disease from the encounter.
The child -- who had been living in a Cairns foster home before the department decided to return her to Aurukun, in Cape York -- has been diagnosed as ``mildly intellectually impaired'' and suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome, having been born to an alcohol-dependent mother.
The Australian yesterday revealed nine males who pleaded guilty to gang-raping the girl had escaped a prison term, with sentencing judge Sarah Bradley saying the child victim ``probably agreed'' to have sex with them.
An eight-month investigation was conducted into the April 2006 multiple rape and submitted to the Department of Child Safety, resulting in one senior officer being sacked and two others suspended for 12 months on full pay -- a situation that still exists.
A senior departmental official yesterday told The Australian that the child involved was sexually abused at age seven and, as a safety measure, was put with various foster families, eventually ending up in 2005 with a non-indigenous family in Cairns. But she was returned nine months later to Aurukun, where she was gang-raped by the nine males.
``These non-indigenous people were fantastic -- ensuring she went to school, and the father actually took a year off his work to personally supervise this girl,'' he said. ``But two new social workers were appointed to the north and they expressed the view, which was repeated many times to the investigating committee, that putting an indigenous child with white foster parents was another stolen generation.
``They convinced the department with this rubbish and the girl was taken from Cairns to Aurukun -- back to where she was being abused previously and where she had contracted syphilis as a little child -- and she was unsupervised, with the result that she was constantly raped.
``The report sets out how every step of the way the Child Safety Department did everything wrong, and all because they weretold that a safe, white environment was `another stolen generation'.''
A report of the rape in The Australian yesterday sparked animmediate response, with Queensland Attorney-General Kerry Shine announcing he would lodge an appeal against the sentencing of the nine attackers.
But Mr Shine admitted the appeal would be hampered by the fact the prosecutor in the case, Steve Carter, did not recommend jail. Mr Carter yesterday refused to speak to The Australian about the sentences, referring questions to the DPP's office in Brisbane.
The Queensland Government also ordered a review of every sentence handed down in every sexual assault case in Cape York communities in the past two years.
Premier Anna Bligh said the purpose of the review was to examine whether the sentence in the Aurukun rape case was part of``system-wide'' problems in the Cape.
``I want to satisfy myself that the people of Cape York, and the people who live in remote indigenous communities, are receiving the same level of justice as we can expect in any other community in Queensland,'' Ms Bligh said. ``I do want to satisfy myself that this is not part of a broader sentencing trend that reflects a lower standard for those communities.''
The case also prompted questions as to whether the federal intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities should be extended to Queensland in an effort to prevent such abuses occurring again.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd refused to commit to a such a move, saying: ``I think the appropriate thing is to await the further deliberation of Queensland's Attorney-General.''
Continued -- Page 2
From Page 1
The official report produced following the eight-month investigation states that a senior Child Safety officer was told on May 11 last year that the child had gonorrhea. It was revealed after the girl attended the Aurukun medical clinic on May 5 last year asking for a pregnancy test and condoms.
That information was immediately relayed to Child Safety, but the senior Child Safety officer did not pass the information on to police in line with her statutory obligations, and when questioned about it said she had spent several weeks making inquiries if gonorrhea was contractable through means other than sexual transmission.
The investigating committee also reported that the Child Safety officers took no remedial action when the girl threatened to commit suicide.
The committee's findings of failures by the Child Safety Department included possible non-reporting of other criminal offences against children to police, other possible early returns of indigenous children to their communities without sufficient prior consideration, and failure to record a suicide risk alert regarding the raped child's threat to suicide and whether this is indicative of a broader problem.
The report's findings also highlighted a loss of departmental documents including the child's Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) file and other SCAN files; a lack of knowledge by staff of what diseases constitute sexually transmitted diseases; and a lack of knowledge by staff of what may constitute a criminal offence on a child.
The committee also found the child had first contracted syphilis in April 2002 when she was aged seven and was raped by five juveniles in Aurukun, receiving severe genital injuries.
When sentencing the nine juveniles for the gang rape carried out last year, Judge Bradley said: ``All of you have pleaded guilty to having sex with a 10-year-old girl and (one of the juveniles) has pleaded guilty to having sex with another young girl as well.
``All of you have to understand that you cannot have sex with a girl under 16.
``If you do, you are breaking the law, and if you are found out, then you will be brought to court and could end up in jail.
``I accept that the girl involved, with respect to all of these matters, was not forced, and that she probably agreed to have sex with all of you.''
