MANIFESTLY INADEQUATE

In all the frivolity and frippery and fun and champagne bubbles at Flemington yesterday you may be surprised at the topic most mentioned to me out there. Then again may be you won’t.

It wasn’t about racing, it wasn’t about the elections. It was about a court case and the expression ‘the Werribee DVD’ – which has come to epitomise gang depravity, teenage cruelty, and a pack mentality that humiliated a defenceless teenage girl.

The term also now epitomises, in my mind, a scandalous miscarriage of justice where the kid glove treatment and so-called rehabilitation of a pack of hoons seemed more important to the sentencing judge than a fitting punishment. Than any punishment.

Not even a year, not even a week, in a juvenile detention centre for a pack attack. Nothing that could have at least told a young vulnerable girl that her tormentors were being punished for what they did to her.  Nothing for these foul creatures who defiled her, humiliated her, forced themselves on her and then videoed it all and sold the DVD for five bucks a time in secondary schools.

I make no apology for going back to this issue yet again. And it gives me no satisfaction to say I told you so four months ago when it seemed the fix was in.

Back then the judge conceded it was a very serious offence. ‘I think they exploited the vulnerability of a young woman who couldn’t protect herself.’ Exactly.

But then he said the men –aged 16 to 18 – had no prior convictions, bright futures and the primary sentencing consideration would be their rehabilitation and education.

No it shouldn’t. The ‘primary consideration’ should be for their victim. And I don’t give a damn about their ‘bright futures’.

To make it worse I warned there been some palsy-walsy deals between the prosecutors and the defence teams to ensure that none of the sexual predators would go to jail or a juvenile detention centre for their crimes.

Prosecutors made ‘significant concessions’ ( translate that as meaning they dropped more than 30 charges) to enable resolution of the case  and not push for time in custody.

And the prosecutor said they would attend a sexual offenders program including education on ‘how not to treat women’. And that’s what happened. What a sick joke.

I can hear it now. Today’s lesson is to explain to you that you are not allowed to rape women and that no means no and it is bad to urinate on them and set their hair on fire. And if you do then it is doubly bad to make a DVD of it and sell the dirty movie in schools.

It’s distasteful but it is worth reminding people of what these youths recorded on tape. The one they labelled ‘C.u.n.t.—the Movie’ and sold for five bucks in schools and splashed on the Internet where it will circulate forever.

One pointed at the victim, turned to the camera, and said ‘What the eff. She’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.’ They talked about hiring her out as a prostitute. One urged the others to give her a Brazilian wax. ‘We’ve got to make this bitch look like a slut’.

And they go unpunished. What of their parents? Apparently some laughed it off as ‘a bit of fun’. Others knew about the DVD involving their sons and did nothing. I wonder if they have daughters? And what caring sons they were. The DVD even thanked one boy’s mother for the use of her video camera.

I urge you to write to the DPP. Protest that these sentences are manifestly inadequate. Show this girl that there are a lot of people out there who feel for her and believe the system abused her as well.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007