WA: Racing industry teenagers jailed for gang rape

AAP General News (Australia)
08-18-2000
WA: Racing industry teenagers jailed for gang rape

Four teenagers associated with the West Australian racing industry have been jailed
for up to four years for what's been called a depraved repeated gang-rape of an 18-year-old
stablehand.

Two other teenagers found guilty of unlawfully detaining the woman have received intensive
community supervision orders.

In the WA District Court today, Judge MICHAEL MULLER said four of the youths -- three
of them apprentice jockeys and one a schoolboy -- had subjected the woman to a prolonged,
and humiliating series of sex attacks on May 22 last year.

The court heard the woman was lured to one of the jockey's quarters after meeting him
at McDonald's and receiving an assurance from him that nothing untoward would happen.

When she arrived at the quarters, the light was turned out and she was dragged to a
bed, stripped and held down while the assaults began.

As family and friends in the public gallery wept, the two ringleaders of the attack
-- both aged 16 at the time -- were ordered to serve minimum terms of 20 months' detention
for deprivation of liberty, aggravated indecent assault and multiple counts of aggravated
sexual penetration.

Two others have been sentenced to three years and six months, and 14 months for their
part in the attacks.

The two teenagers convicted only of deprivation of liberty received 12-month intensive
youth supervision orders.

Outside the court, the distraught father of two of the teenagers said he blamed the
racing industry for not taking better care of his sons.

AAP RTV alm/et/jn

KEYWORD: JOCKEYS (PERTH)

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