Man who tried to rape little boy to be released to live with other children in Aboriginal community

A man who tried to rape a three-year-old boy while he played in his front yard could soon be released to live with other children, a court has heard.

A MAN who tried to rape a three-year-old boy while he played in his Darwin front yard could soon be released to live with other children, despite the lack of an “accurate risk assessment”, a court has heard.

Joseph Marrday, 22, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to one count of attempted rape after he tried to insert his erect penis into the small boy’s mouth in March last year.

The court heard Marrday approached the boy as he stood in the yard, reached through a gap between the gates and placed his hand on the back of his head while he unzipped his pants and removed his penis.

He then positioned himself directly in front of the gap in the gates and “pushed the victim’s head towards his erect penis” and “attempted to insert his penis into the victim’s mouth”.

A passer-by out for a run came across the scene and interrupted Marrday before sounding the alarm with the child’s mother who was inside and the would-be rapist ran off.

Police found and arrested Marrday a short time later and he told them he “never did anything to the little one”.

“The girl told like me that I was thing to that little boy, sex (sic),” he said.

“She frightened me and I turned and ran away.”

In a sentencing hearing in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Marrday’s lawyer, Shannon Ramsay, asked Justice Judith Kelly to consider allowing her client to return to the remote Aboriginal community of Warruwi on a suspended sentence.

“When he’s in Warruwi he has not come to the attention of the criminal justice system,” she said.

“He has had an incredibly positive upbringing, incredibly supportive upbringing and it has been a combination of factors that has brought him before this court.”

But Justice Kelly said there would be “a slight potential difficulty” with that as there were “children in the house he’s going to be living in”. “They’re his cousins, I think, and the mother says she’s never had any problems with him, there’s no concerns about that,” she said.

Justice Kelly said any attempt to evaluate Marrday’s risk of reoffending would be “kind of guess work”.

“Is it really possible to do any really accurate risk assessment with sexual offending of this nature with somebody who has never committed such an offence before?” she asked.

“Sometimes it’s just unknown.”

Crown prosecutor Tami Grealy said a proposed condition for Marrday’s release could be that he should not be around children except under supervision “or with the express permission of an adult with parental responsibility”.

He will return to court for sentencing on Friday.