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A judge in Australia was facing calls to step down today after she failed to jail a group of nine males who admitted gang-raping a 10-year-old girl in an Aboriginal community, saying the young victim "probably agreed" to have sex with them.

Instead of jailing the three adults, aged 17 to 26, one of whom was a repeat sex offender, and giving custodial sentences to the six juveniles aged 14 to 16, Queensland District Court judge Sarah Bradley handed out suspended sentences and probation orders.


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, released earlier this year, described the problem as widespread and endemic.

The newly elected prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said he was "appalled and disgusted" by the details of the case while Queensland's attorney-general, Kerry Shine, said he would appeal the judge's decision. Indigenous leaders said it sent a terrible message to vulnerable girls and women living in fear in Australia's their communities.

"If this was a white girl in white suburban Brisbane' there's no way the defendants would have walked out of court," said child protection campaigner Hetty Johnston.

Aboriginal academic Professor Boni Robertson called for the judge to step down while there was an inquiry. "It's undermined everything we have worked for over the last 10 years to get our women justice in this country," she said.

The assault on the child happened in 2005 in Aurukun on Cape York on the northern edge of Queensland, a community 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. In a recent outbreak of violence, rival gangs fought with sticks and spears.

Judge Bradley's handling of the case was revealed by The Australian newspaper. In passing sentence, she told the participants 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." Facing allegations that the country's justice system was failing children, the attorney general met the director of public prosecutions today to review the case. '

"I am truly horrified by the circumstances of these offences," Mr Shine said. He said the law should be consistent in its application in indigenous and white communities. The opposition justice spokesman, Mark McArdle, also called for an inquiry.

Queensland's premier, Anna Bligh, said all sexual offences sentences arising out of Cape York communities over the past two years would be reviewed. "The nature of the sentences in this case are so far from community expectations I have to say I am alarmed, and I am not prepared to write this off as an unusual one-off case," she said.

She added that the girl, who had been returned to the community after being put in foster care, was once more back in foster care, receiving medical and other treatment, and is reportedly doing well.

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