A ONE-MONTH sentence for under-age sex with an Aboriginal girl has been justified on the grounds it was a clash of cultures and generations.
The Northern Territory Director of Public Prosecutions has indicated he may appeal against the leniency of the sentence imposed on a 55-year-old Aboriginal man who abused his 14-year-old “promised wife”.
Territory Supreme Court Chief Justice Brian Martin travelled last week to the remote Aboriginal community of Yarralin, west of Katherine, to hear the “extremely difficult case”.
The Aboriginal elder pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and having sex with a child.
The teenager had been promised to him as a wife, according to Aboriginal law, when she was four. After rumours in the community that the teenager might have had sex with her boyfriend, the man hit her with a boomerang and had sex with her.
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