Eight Charged with 500 Abuse Offenses against Australian Girl
Eight men have been charged with hundreds of child sex offences against a 13-year-old girl in Australia, including her father who police alleged Wednesday facilitated the horrific abuse over two years.
Detectives in Western Australia arrested the men, aged between 35 and 47, last week after a tip-off from the public in April.
They face 503 charges, including sexual penetration of a child under 13, stupefying the girl potentially with drugs or alcohol, indecently recording the abuse and distributing child exploitation material.
As an example of the horrific nature of the alleged offences, police said one man alone was in possession of 200,000 videos and four million images, although they were not only of the Perth teenager.
"It's disgusting material. There's no words to describe it," Detective Superintendent Glenn Feeney told reporters in Perth, adding that the girl had been rescued.
"The victim is now a 13-year-old child. At the time of the offences alleged she was between the ages of 11 and 13," he added.
"She was rescued from this horrible situation she was in. She is safe, she is receiving the care that she requires and that will be an ongoing situation."
Feeney said the girl's father was among those charged but with the case now before the courts, he would not reveal whether money changed hands, only that he was accused of sharing her with the other men.
"It will be alleged in the courts that each of the other offenders knew the father and it (the abuse) was facilitated by the father," he said, refusing to comment on the whereabouts of the mother.
Police are continuing to sift through the material seized with Feeney not ruling out further arrests. All the men have appeared in court with at least one pleading guilty, he added.
Source: Agence France Presse
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