Top judge urges jail terms for rapists
15.05.2008

By Sarah Elks.
QUEENSLAND'S Chief Justice told a Brisbane court yesterday that jail or detention for the nine men and boys who raped a 10-year-old girl at Aurukun in 2006 might act as a circuit breaker to stop them reoffending.
Chief Justice Paul de Jersey, speaking on the second day of an appeal by the Queensland Government against the sentences imposed on the men and boys, said jail could ``break the cycle'' of reoffending and expose them to ``some sort of discipline'', which was lacking in their lives.
He added that as well as protecting society, the sentences should fulfil the other sentencing objectives of ``denunciation and deterrence''.
Chief Justice de Jersey said the case was not only about the Aurukun community, as it had ``relevance to the whole legal system in this state and the whole of the criminal justice system in this state''.
The most senior bench of the state's Court of Appeal yesterday reserved its decision after hearing 1 1/2 days of submissions from lawyers representing the Attorney-General and the offenders.
The Australian revealed last year that Cairns District Court judge Sarah Bradley failed to send to jail any of the nine males who pleaded guilty to raping the girl at the indigenous community in far north Queensland.
Judge Bradley gave three men, aged 17, 18 and 25 at the time of the offence, suspended sentences and ordered convictions not be recorded against six juveniles, aged between 13 and 15.
The Australian's coverage of the case sparked international outrage and prompted Queensland Attorney-General Kerry Shine to appeal against the leniency of the sentences. At the time, Mr Shine described them as ``manifestly inadequate''.
In Brisbane's Court of Appeal yesterday, Solicitor-General Walter Sofronoff QC, for the Queensland Government, argued the men should be sentenced to between seven and eight years' jail.
He said the juveniles should receive detention sentences of between one and three years.
But senior counsel representing the nine offenders, Ken Fleming, said none of his clients should be jailed or detained, because Aurukun was a dysfunctional and degenerative society.
Mr Fleming referred to an affidavit by anthropologist David Martin which stated Aurukun had experienced a ``catastrophic'' breakdown of social and cultural life over the past three decades.
Mr Fleming conceded that ``tragically, it exists in this community that (sexual abuse of children) has become the norm''.
Mr Sofronoff asked the court to consider some mitigating factors when deciding on sentences for the men and boys.
He said it should be taken into account that the appeal had been requested by the Attorney-General and the offenders had been at liberty for six months.
Mr Sofronoff said there was no suggestion any of the children had breached the probation orders handed down by Judge Bradley and said they had attended a Young Men's Business program in Aurukun. Three of the boys had also been involved in anger-replacement programs in the community.
He revealed that one of the accused, who was 14 at the time of the offence, had been sexually abused himself on the day he raped the 10-year-old girl.
Mr Sofronoff said the boy had been the victim of unlawful carnal knowledge by an older woman. The Court of Appeal is expected to deliver its judgment within a few weeks.