Posted on 07/11/2002 3:57:15 PM PDT by knighthawk
A TEENAGER yesterday became the seventh woman to sit in court and watch the men who had gang raped her convicted of their crimes.
Most of the seven have never met. They are victims of 14 young males who now have been convicted or pleaded guilty to five different gang rapes and sexual assaults in western Sydney over two months two years ago. Many of the women, including yesterday's victim, who can only be called D, had to go to court each day and confront the attackers who degraded them and stole their sense of security.
Somehow, through tears and pain, they delivered heart-wrenching testimony of the attacks they suffered during August and September 2000.
Yesterday two brothers were convicted by a NSW District Court jury of their role in the rape of D, ending the final chapter of rape trials which they have faced in the past few months.
The older brother, M, 20, now has been found guilty of his role in three different gang rapes committed 20 days apart involving four women.
His brother, M1, 19, has been convicted of two rapes 18 days apart. The brothers were convicted last month of their role in the rape of a young woman known as C, who was assaulted by 14 males at three western Sydney locations over six hours.
And M also has been convicted in relation to the assault of two young women who were attacked by eight males.
Late yesterday D and C met for the first time. They embraced and held each other for several emotional minutes.
Before long, they were chatting and laughing like old friends. They had both endured days of giving evidence and reliving intimate details of their ordeal before strangers.
The card, which C gave to D yesterday, reflected what they both were feeling. C wrote "Truth is Justice", three simple words whose import could not be overestimated. Earlier, D had sat trembling and clinging to the hand of Salvation Army Major Joyce Harmer, as she waited for the jury to file in and announce the word "guilty".
As realisation set in that her life was about to be returned to her, the tears emerged and she embraced her case officer, Detective Edmund Walsh. Outside the court she ran down the corridor, her arms up in a victory parade.
"I feel complete today, I feel complete. I haven't felt this way in a long time," D told The Daily Telegraph.
"I did this for the girls who didn't go to the police, who were too scared. If it means the streets are safer and one girl doesn't go through what I went through, it is worthwhile. Now they are behind bars."
Crown Prosecutor Margaret Cunneen paid tribute to the "great courage" of all the victims.
"It is a very gratifying result and justifies the hard work of the police investigators," she said.
After the verdicts, Judge Michael Finnane told the jury that this trial brought to an end a chapter of rape trials involving the brothers.
"Although you did not know it, [M] has been convicted of other offences of a similar nature before today. And his brother has been convicted in another trial of similar offences," Judge Finnane said.
And while they are the only two to be charged in relation to the rape of D, photographs of many of the men involved in the earlier rapes were shown to D on police photo boards. However, she did not identify any of these men.
Shortly before the start of this trial and after the end of the June trial, the Judge was told that the older brother M had been admitted to the jail hospital suffering an anti-social personality disorder and his defence was having trouble taking instructions. But it was not enough to delay the trial.
The brothers will be sentenced for all their crimes on a date to be fixed.
The attacks were investigated by Strike Force Sayda, a police unit set up in late-August 2000 to look at a series of gang rapes in western Sydney by males of Lebanese origin. Some of the attacks had included racial taunts to the victims.
The other attacks include:
August 4, when a 14-year-old girl was approached by four males on a train, who asked for oral sex, thrust a condom packet in her face and one exposed his penis. At Punchbowl station she managed to escape, but only after one of the men told another man in a mobile phone call: "I've got a slut with me bro, come to Punchbowl;"
August 10 when two girls, 17 and 18, were taken to Northcote Park at Greenacre and forced to repeatedly perform oral sex upon eight males;
August 12, the case involving D who was taken to Gosling Park, Greenacre where a total of 14 males gathered. She was held down and raped by two, threatened at gunpoint before she managed to escape;
August 30, when an 18-year-old was raped by a group of 14 males at three western Sydney locations in a six-hour ordeal. During this she was called an "Aussie pig" and told "I'm going to f .. k you Leb style"; and
September 5, when two 16-year-old girls were taken to a Villawood home and repeatedly raped by three males at knifepoint.
Cousin was shot the day after he testified THE day after the male cousin of M and M1 gave evidence at their trial and denied any role in the gang rape, he was shot in the leg.
It is not known what was behind the shooting, which happened outside his western Sydney home during an argument between a number of men about 9.30pm on Tuesday. He is still in hospital.
The 20-year-old's reluctant appearance as a Crown witness at the gang rape trial was a late addition to the Crown line-up.
From early on in the trial it was apparent that M's defence was going to be a case of mistaken identity and that he was going to stick by the version he gave police during a recorded interview in April 2001.
In this interview, where M purported he wanted to "tell youse the truth", he had no hesitation in fingering his cousin as the rapist.
In addition, he confidently revealed that his cousin had guns and went out drug dealing in a white van which he later torched.
"I know for a fact when they go out selling drugs in that white van, they carry a gun with them ... I know for a fact, every time they're selling pot they've got the gun hidden in the van," M said.
The victim had said M arrived at the rape scene in a white van and that a gun was held to her head. And he offered to help police by going undercover to set his cousin up. M also offered the names of several other people, his brother's friends and people who drove cars similar to those used in the gang rape, saying he "knew for a fact" that his brother's mates were at the park that night.
M claimed in the interview that he was at home on the night of the rape with his mother, his cousin and his cousin's friend.
He claimed his brother M1 had called and asked to speak with his cousin and that his cousin then took off to the rape scene at Gosling Park.
"He told me he went to the park and slept with the girl, had sex with her ... just, oh yeah, copped a root."
Given that M was going to claim his cousin was the first rapist and that the victim's identification of himself was mistaken, Crown Prosecutor Margaret Cunneen decided it was necessary for the jury to see this cousin in the flesh.
She wanted to make it entirely plain to the jury that the two were different in physical appearance and size.
Story of courage ... a 16-year-old girl, left, raped at a Greenacre park on August 12, and an 18-year-old girl raped over six hours at three western Sydney locations on August 30.
Why are they protecting the identity of a 20-year-old convicted felon? Any insight into Australia here?
Anti-Muslim feelings running high
Ethnicity and bad publicity a volatile mix
Skipper Howard all at sea without a moral compass
It isn't over yet. The real proof is in the sentence...
I like the way you think. Getting a little closer to justice that way. Not close enough, but it's a start. How about a very dull Bowie knife? And how accurate does the timer have to be?
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