FBI tip-off leads to arrest of Alice Springs man for child rape
The man has been charged with alleged multiple child abuse offences – including the rape of a child – following a referral by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation.
An Alice Springs man has been charged with multiple child abuse offences – including the alleged rape of a child – following a referral by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Earlier this week NT Police received an “urgent referral” from the FBI, via the Australian Federal Police, with officers executing a search warrant and allegedly seizing “large quantities” of child abuse material.
Officers from the NT Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team, a joint child abuse taskforce comprising of the Australian Federal Police and NT Police, allege the man also sexually assaulted a child “under the age of five”, who was known to him.
He has been charged with nine serious child abuse charges of sexual intercourse with child under 10, two counts of gross indecency with child under 14, three counts of produce child abuse material for use via a carriage service, possess or control child abuse material, access child abuse material and transmit child abuse material.
NT Police Detective Superintendent Paul Lawson commended the “seamless collaboration” between NT Police, AFP and the FBI to bring the man before the courts.
“If you allegedly abuse a child or procure, access and transmit child abuse material, we will find you, and you will be prosecuted,” Superintendfent Lawson said. “We will continue to work tirelessly to protect children from harm.”
Senior police warned that alleged “offenders cannot hide behind a screen” if they allegedly “carry out these reprehensible and hideous acts”.
It comes just months after The Australian revealed a five-year-old boy had allegedly been raped in a remote Northern Territory community, with one advocate alleging half of the 20 remote communities she visited in 2024 had children as young as five exhibiting “harmful sexual behaviour”.
Child abuse prevention educator Holly-ann Martin, who has visited 87 remote communities during her 35-year career to provide her abuse prevention education program, said there was an “epidemic” of child sexual abuse and further awareness needed to be drawn to the “nationwide issue”.
“I would have been in at least 20 remote communities last year and at least half of them were because of children exhibiting harmful sexual behaviours,” she said on Friday.
Ms Martin, who was awarded an Order of Australia for her work with children, said these cases had already been reported to authorities, but she was seeing children as young as five who had been exposed to pornographic material and were then going on to act out what they were seeing in pornography on other children.
More Coverage
Labor triumphs in Bullwinkel
Bullwinkel was notionally Labor-held but both sides had privately expected it to fall to the Liberals, given it took in areas directly impacted by the Albanese government’s ban on live sheep exports.
‘Dog’ act: Noel Pearson unleashes on all sides
Noel Pearson has broken his long silence since the defeat of the Indigenous voice with an excoriating critique of both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton.