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15 February 2008
just sack her
And if it is possible, prosecute her and jail her for dereliction of duty and causing immeasurable harm:
THE north Queensland judge who last year allowed nine child rapists to go free has given a teacher, who has admitted forcing an indigenous 11-year-old boy to perform oral sex on him, time to gather evidence that he was educating his victim in "men's business".
James Last, a Sydney-educated teacher who recently worked in Northern Territory communities, including Maningrida, east of Darwin, last week pleaded guilty in Cairns before District Court judge Sarah Bradley to seven counts of indecently dealing with an 11-year-old boy over a four-month period in 1983.
But Judge Bradley has granted a three-month adjournment to allow Last, who claims he received no sexual gratification from the assaults, to allow his lawyers to find an anthropologist to support his claim that he had been trying to introduce the Torres Strait boy to "traditional" islander sexual practices.
Judge Bradley granted the adjournment despite the prosecution pointing out that it had two witnesses - "respected elders" from the boy's home island of Saibai - ready to debunk the claim that such practices were part of "men's business".
The adjournment has outraged indigenous leaders, who have already called for Judge Bradley's sacking after she failed last year to jail nine males for the gang rape of a 10-year-old girl in the Cape York community of Aurukun.
Last, now 61 and living in Darwin, took the 11-year-old boy from his family on Saibai Island in the Torres Strait in 1983, promising to educate him in Cairns. But Last, who was 37 at the time of the offences, repeatedly sexually abused the boy, at one point saying: "I've sucked you, now it's your turn."
I'm talking about the judge. Then lock up Last.
And for the love of God, just do away with this crap about "traditional law" and "culture" as a defence because this is how it is used against the most vulnerable:
Ms Growden told the court that although Last had a part-Aboriginal father, he was not raised in a traditional manner and that he should receive a custodial sentence to send a clear message to the community.
"It is stated in the defence material that he was born in Sydney where he was educated to grade 12. He then went on to receive a scholarship and teach in Wollongong and undertake postgraduate studies," she said.
"He has gone on to have an illustrious and distinguished career. He is an educated man, using what he claims to be part of Papua New Guinea and Torres Strait Islander culture, that is, men's business, to explain away his offending behaviour. I have been instructed that this is not part of the culture."
And it isn't part of "the culture." And too bad if it was.
Why are we letting this sort of abuse of children go on? Have we learnt absolutely nothing since the stone age?
Posted by saint at 03:21 AM in in sackcloth and ashes | Permalink
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