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Tuesday December 11, 05:16 PM
Gang-rape was an experiment: prosecutor
A legal officer who prosecuted a controversial gang-rape case involving a young girl described the crime as "childish experimentation" and consensual "in a general sense".

Cairns-based District Court judge Sarah Bradley did not record convictions against six teenage attackers and gave three others aged 17, 18 and 26 suspended sentences over the rape of a 10-year-old girl in the indigenous community of Aurukun in 2006.

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The case has caused community outrage, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd saying he was "disgusted and appalled".

Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions Leanne Clare on Tuesday came under fire from child advocates and the state opposition for not seeking jail sentences for the offenders.

Attorney-General Kerry Shine has lodged an appeal to increase the sentences, handed out on October 24.

The state government has also ordered a review of around 75 sexual assault cases in Cape York over the past two years.

While Ms Clare has declined to comment on the gang-rape case, her office publicly released transcripts of the court proceedings.

They revealed that during the case, DPP legal officer Steve Carter described the incident - in which the girl contracted a sexually transmitted disease - as "consensual sex".

"To the extent I can't say it was consensual in the legal sense, but in the other - in the general sense, the non-legal sense, yes, it was," Mr Carter told the court.

"So, I then ask on that basis not to seek any periods of detention, not to seek any periods of custody, immediate custody."

Mr Carter said the girl and the boys and men had prearranged the sex and they had not forced themselves on the girl or threatened her.

"My submission in relation to this particular offence is the same that I make in relation to children of that age ... they're very naughty for doing what they're doing but it's really - in this case, it was a form of childish experimentation, rather than one child being prevailed upon by another," he said.

"Although she was very young, she knew what was going on and she had agreed to meet the children at this particular place and it was all by arrangement.

"I'd ask your Honour to take that into account."

Mr Carter also told the court such incidents were not out of character in small, remote communities.

" ... children, females, have got to be - deserve - the same protection under the law in an Aboriginal or an indigenous community as they do in any other community," Mr Carter said.

"But sometimes things happen in a small community when children get together and people that are just past their childhood and these sort of things are what we're dealing with today."

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin says the courts and child protection system failed the 10-year-old girl who was gang-raped.

Ms Macklin said the case was a "shocking reminder" of the child abuse occurring in indigenous communities.

"Like the Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and the indigenous women of Queensland who have spoken out ... I believe that child safety is paramount, and child victims of violence deserve the full protection of the law," she told participants at a stolen generations conference in Sydney.

"In this case the child protection system and the courts failed the little girl in question."

Ms Bligh has admitted the Queensland government failed the young girl who was pack-raped twice in a far northern indigenous community - the second time after being returned there by child safety officers.

The child was gang-raped at the age of seven in the Cape York community of Aurukun in 2002, and was later put into foster care with a non-indigenous family in Cairns.

However, child safety officers in April 2006 returned her to Aurukun, where she was raped again at the age of 10.

Ms Bligh said there was "absolutely no question" that the Child Safety Department had failed the girl.

"I think it is very important to understand, and I don't resile from the fact for one moment, the system clearly failed this little girl," Ms Bligh told reporters.

"But it is also important to understand that nobody swept that failure under the carpet.

"What we did was take immediate action, discipline the officers involved, moved the child, and changed and improved our response in Aboriginal communities."

Ms Bligh could not give a reason for the officers' decision to return the girl to Aurukun, but said it should never have happened.

Ms Bligh said an investigation was carried out into the second multiple rape, resulting in one senior child safety officer being sacked and two others suspended for 12 months on full pay.

The two suspended officers are appealing against the decision.

The review, which made 140 recommendations, also recommended that child safety officers be based in indigenous communities, rather than visiting on a "fly in, fly out basis".

Media reports suggested the officers removed the child from her white foster parents and returned her to Aurukun to avoid "another stolen generation".

But Ms Bligh said Queensland laws required that children were placed where they would be best protected.

The girl is now in the care of the Child Safety Department.

"She is living away from this community and she is receiving both medical and therapeutic support," Ms Bligh said.

"I understand that she's making good progress but she does have a number of complex and difficult needs."

Ms Bligh expected the review of sexual assault sentences would be completed quickly, but said it was not about returning the cases to trial.

She also denied a Northern Territory-style intervention was needed in Queensland's indigenous communities.

"The NT's problem centred around whether authorities who should've been acting were failing to act," Ms Bligh said.

"What's absolutely clear here is nobody turned a blind eye, the people who should've acted did in relation to this sexual assault.

"In relation to the child safety officers, they clearly failed in their judgment."

Child Safety Minister Margaret Keech said the two suspended officers had been assigned to desk duties.

"What I can assure you is that we have learned significantly from the mistakes," she said

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