A survivor of gang rape has called for underage offenders involved in “pack mentality” assaults to be unmasked after a teenager was allegedly attacked by four people – the youngest of whom was 14 – in Sydney’s south-west.
The 17-year-old girl was shopping at Liverpool Westfield in December last year when she was approached by a 16-year-old boy not known to her. Police allege the 16-year-old got into her car and sexually assaulted her, before three other males joined in the six-hour attack as the girl’s car was driven around the suburbs of Sadleir and Miller.
Tegan Wagner, pictured in 2006, during the trial of her gang rapists.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Two boys, aged 14 and 16, and two teenage men, aged 18 and 19, have been charged with a total of 48 offences. Adam Abdul-Hamid, 19, is the only alleged perpetrator who can be named. The other men were underage at the time of the alleged gang rape and cannot be named for legal reasons.
Tegan Wagner was just 14 years old when she was raped by a gang of brothers in Ashfield, in Sydney’s inner west, in 2002. Despite their convictions, the brothers are publicly known only by their initials.
Wagner chose to identify herself during the court proceedings, and is furious the men were granted anonymity to protect the identity of the youngest brother, who was underage at the time of offending.
“That in turn protected the older one … We need to warn the rest of the community that these guys exist,” she said.
The four brothers and a friend committed a series of brutal attacks against young women in the family home across a six-month period.
The group filmed themselves assaulting women, at times at knifepoint. Several women in the videos did not identify themselves to police and the boys’ crimes weren’t prosecuted.
After a lengthy court case with deliberate attempts to delay the proceedings, the four brothers received jail terms ranging from 10 to 22 years for the attacks against six victims. Two brothers were granted parole in 2010 and 2018. The friend took his own life in prison before sentencing.
Arrest footage of one of the men charged over the 2024 alleged aggravated sexual assault.Credit: NSW Police
Wagner believes perpetrators involved in gang rapes have full knowledge of their actions. “[These kinds of attacks] are orchestrated, planned, premeditated. These people have a game plan to grab somebody from the community and inflict some sort of horror upon them,” she said.
“Considering that we’re in the age of consent, where we all focus a lot on teaching our kids what consent means … There’s no way that they couldn’t understand that it’s not consensual. [It’s] pack mentality behaviour.”
As for the teenagers charged over last year’s Liverpool attack, Wagner said it was “not at all acceptable” that their names weren’t disclosed.
“Their age doesn’t change the fact that they have collaborated and [allegedly] raped somebody. These people should have to live with what they did for the rest of their lives, as the victims do.”
Dr Rachael Burgin, Swinburne Law School senior lecturer in criminal justice and criminology, and CEO of not-for-profit group Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy, said community safety should always be at the fore of responding to sexual violence. She questioned whether naming underage perpetrators would improve public safety.
“Violence can never be justified, but we cannot look at children without looking at their context … and own experience of trauma,” she said.
“Our laws are not built for individual cases, they’re built for a collective.”
Acting NSW Police Commissioner Peter Thurtell called the attack “sickening”.
“Our thoughts are with the victim and her family who will undoubtedly have to live with this alleged sickening attack for the rest of their lives,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
“An alleged horrific crime of this nature drives our investigators to be meticulous in gathering evidence in order to get an irrefutable conviction.”
Sex Crimes Squad Detective Superintendent Jayne Doherty said in an interview on 2GB on Wednesday that the details of the alleged attack “shocked” investigators.
“These are the most serious sexual offences you can commit. They’re in company, the degradation and the sexual acts they [allegedly] committed on this poor young girl in a pack,” she said.
“You can only imagine the stress that she was under and the fear that she would have had.”
Doherty said sexual assault can have lifelong impacts: “[It’s] one of the things that are carried very very deeply inside”.
Wagner agreed, and said the 17-year-old was probably “not through the most traumatic part yet”.
“The court process, the questions that are asked of you [and] the insinuation that you’re a liar – those impacts are lifelong,” she said.
She is calling for the $10,000 recognition payment for victims of violent crime to be increased, and requested the media and the public to respect the victim’s privacy.
If you need support, you can contact 1800RESPECT, the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service, on 1800 737 732.
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