Man to be sentenced for raping intellectually impaired girl
A “depraved” man who raped an intellectually impaired teenager in the toilet block of a Townsville school, after he injected her with ice, will today learn his fate.
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A “depraved” man who raped an intellectually impaired teenager in the toilet block of a Townsville school – after he injected her with ice – will today learn his fate.
Prosecutors are calling for the man, 45, to serve no less than 14 years for the horrific rape and sexual assault of a girl, who was just 15 when the abuse began.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the identify of his victim, was found guilty in September in Townsville Supreme Court of seven charges, including two counts of rape, two counts of supplying dangerous drugs to a minor and one count of sexual assault.
Prosecuting for the Crown, Monique Sheppard described the man’s offences as “aggravating”.
“The defendant’s conduct was depraved and manipulative,” she said.
“The complainant suffered from a profound intellectual disability which would have been well known to the defendant.”
The abuse began when the girl was just 15, with the man entering her bedroom and digitally raping her.
At the time of the rape the child asked the man what he was doing and he replied, “I like it,” the court heard during sentencing yesterday.
On April 22, 2017, the man injected a needle filled with methamphetamine into the girl’s right arm, at the back of a Cranbrook shop.
The court heard the injection drew blood and the man placed a Band-Aid over the mark.
Later that evening, the man walked the girl to a school and removed her clothing in the toilet block.
The court heard the man removed his clothing and made the girl sit on the ground where he again injected methamphetamine into her left arm.
The man then told the girl he was going to have sex with her.
Ms Sheppard said the girl’s account of the rape was like being killed.
“(She) describes (the toilet block assault), him getting sh--ty with her,” she said.
“She describes that she could not get up off the floor. She describes some level of violence in the refusal of the defendant’s requests.
“To use (her) words, she felt ‘like she was getting killed’.”
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In another assault on May 12, 2017, Ms Sheppard said the man followed the girl into the shower, removed his clothes and sexually assaulted her.
Defence barrister Dane Marley said his client was adopted when he was six weeks old and had started using drugs after a workplace accident.
“In 2005, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder which arose out of a work accident where the defendant collided with somebody and killed them,” Mr Marley said.
“After this accident he started abusing drugs to cope … he was using drugs at the time of the offences.”
Mr Marley argued that the man did not inject the methamphetamine to “stupefy” the girl.
“His intention in respect of supplying that drug, it was a gratuitous administration of the drug,” he said.
Mr Marley asked the judge that the man only be sentenced to 11 years in prison, to serve 80 per cent.
The man has spent 1256 days on remand in jail.
Justice David North reserved his sentence until 2.15pm today.
Originally published as Man to be sentenced for raping intellectually impaired girl