Nine people who pleaded guilty to raping a 10-year-old girl in Australia have avoided prison sentences.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was horrified by reports of the trial of a group of juveniles and older men charged with the rape of the child in the settlement of Aurukun in northern Queensland state in 2005.
The case has prompted officials to set up a review of sexual assault cases in remote Aboriginal communities.
District court judge Sarah Bradley placed six of the offenders, who were juveniles at the time of the rape, on 12-month probation and recorded no convictions against them. She suspended six-month prison sentences for the three other offenders, aged 17, 18 and 26.
Judge Bradley told the offenders that it was illegal to have sex with anyone younger than 16, but the victim in this case "was not forced, and she probably agreed to have sex with all of you".
Aboriginal leaders criticised the result as too lenient and demanded that Judge Bradley be fired. Queensland attorney-general Kerry Shine said the government would appeal against the sentences.
State premier Anna Bligh announced a review of all sexual assault cases in Aboriginal communities on Cape York, the remote region where the assault occurred.
The case comes less than six months after the federal government announced an intervention to combat what an official report found was rampant child sex abuse in Aboriginal societies in the Outback Northern Territory.
The government moved to seize powers over the communities from the territorial government and impose restrictions on alcohol sales and distribution of pornography, among other measures.
PA