Posted on 06/07/2002 5:05:24 PM PDT by knighthawk
DAY after day a young woman sat in a witness box and told a room of strangers about the night she was gang raped.
Yesterday, she sat in the court as the jury foreman announced four of her attackers were guilty of involvement in her six-hour ordeal. On the 25th day of the trial the jury reached a unanimous verdict on all but one charge. On that charge the foreman told Judge Finnane the jury could not agree and never would.
The jury of six men and six women found the four men, now aged 19 and 20 years, guilty of a total of 15 charges relating to kidnap and aggravated sexual intercourse without consent relating to oral and vaginal sex. On one sexual assault charge, relating to one man, they could not agree on a verdict.
The four men, referred to in the trial as X, Y, Z and X1, were part of a group of 14 men accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting the young woman, who can only be known as C, over 6½ hours at three western Sydney locations on August 30, 2000.
For two of the men, X and Y, it was their second gang rape conviction.
With Salvation Army Major Joyce Harmer and her father there for support, the young woman cried quiet tears of relief – vindicated that her decision to give evidence had been worthwhile.
Her mother, who supported her during her evidence, was unable to be at court yesterday.
Outside court and away from the eyes of her attackers she cried again, out loud. She had never wanted to cry in front of the men who subjected her to such degradation.
The stress of the 2½ days she spent waiting for the jury's verdict had been a trying time for the 20-year-old.
But in the words of the Crown Prosecutor Margaret Cunneen she was an extraordinarily good witness.
Tensions and security were high in the packed courtroom as C and her family and police from Strike Force Sayda listened as Judge Michael Finnane announced that, after 2½ days of deliberations during which they had been sequestered overnight, the jury had sent him two notes.
The four men showed little emotion as the verdicts were read out, then they waved and smiled to their families. But as they were being led away a brawl broke out between two of the men. One called to the other then punched him in the face and officers restrained them.
The court heard in this trial how one of C's attackers, X1, told her "I'm going to f. . . you Leb-style" and another demanded that she perform oral sex upon him, calling her an "Aussie pig".
Midway through the ordeal, when C tried to escape at a service station, she had what she believed was a gun held at her head and was told "Don't move bitch or you're dead".
And, in a final act of degradation, she was hosed down by her attackers at the scene of the last assault.
Ms Cunneen submitted that C's ordeal "would to decent and civilised people be almost inconceivable".
The four young men, who were aged 17 and 18 at the time of the rapes, all knew each other, having attended the same schools and lived in the same western Sydney suburbs.
Two of them, X and X1, are brothers. Their father supported them at court, as did their mother. X's girlfriend was often at court.
Y was supported in court by his brother and other family members. Y had worked in a paving business for two years since leaving school at 16. Z had worked with a bricklaying business for about four years. His girlfriend supported him in court for much of the trial.
X1, together with Y and Z, had gone to the same school. Y and Z had gone to school together from kindergarten to Year 10.
Two of the men, Z and X1, admitted having sex with C but claimed it was consensual. The other two claimed they were not there and C's identification of them, from police photo boards, was mistaken.
The jury disagreed.
Judge Finnane remanded the men for mention next Friday and remanded X to be retried on the one count on which the jury found they could not agree.
The same thing happened in Virginia Beach,Virginia a couple of years ago. A 11 year old boy raped a 8 year old girl,and walked away free because it was determined he was too young to know what he was doing.
How about "World According to Garp"-style? They wouldn't do any more raping then.
What did the sheick in the local mosque say? Why is that, with all the gory details of the rapes and the trials, the report says nothing about that? WHere is the outrage of the Australian Muslim community?
No outrage because the victims are not Muslim. Do you think any Christian, Jew, or Hindu would think this way?
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