teen shotguns stepdad who raped her, no charges

http://www.smh.com.au/national/sex-slave-teen-murder-charge-dropped-20090327-9d3g.html



'Sex slave' teen murder charge dropped

* Chris Johnston
* March 27, 2009

The director of public prosecutions has dropped a murder charge against a country Victorian teenager accused of murdering the stepfather who sexually abused her.

In an extraordinary Supreme Court hearing this morning the 19-year-old from Mooroopna, near Shepparton, was freed of the charge by Jeremy Rapke, QC, using a legal procedure called Nolle prosequi - a Latin legal phrase meaning 'do not pursue' - in which a prosecutor may apply to have charges dropped.

The teen looked relieved and immediately left the court. She cannot be identified.

Mr Rapke told the court there was no reasonable prospect that a jury would convict the girl of murder. She had previously been committed to stand trial in September and had entered a plea of not guilty.

He said the decision should not be seen as providing an "imprimatur" for victims of sexual assault or family violence to take the law into their own hands and to kill or maim their tormentors.

Earlier court hearings were told she shot her stepfather in the head with his own shotgun in March 2007 to free herself from a life of horrendous sexual slavery. The next morning, according to a police interview, she cut off his arms, legs and head with a handsaw. She then buried the torso in the garden, put the limbs and head in white plastic rubbish bags and took them to a camping ground 16 kilometres away. She threw the limbs down two long-drop toilets and hid the head in the bush.

The man, 34, had sexually abused her - sometimes daily - from when she was 14 for four years. Almost 10,000 images of sexual intercourse and sex acts, taken by the man on a digital camera, were found by police on discs and memory sticks after her arrest.

She told police she had to do what her stepfather had ordered when he was alive because "I was his". Asked what would have happened if she had not shot him, she said: "I probably would have killed myself . . . 'cos I couldn't live the way I was."

Prominent barrister Robert Richter, QC, was set to defend the woman free of charge at her trial. During the committal hearing, the court heard that several people strongly suspected the teenager's relationship with her stepfather was sexual. Her mother - who was living in the Mooroopna house with the pair but working night shifts at the SPC Ardmona cannery - accused him of "f---ing" her daughter but he dismissed it.

Two former school friends of the woman from Mooroopna Secondary College said they had spoken with a teacher and a school counsellor about their suspicions, but to their knowledge no action was taken