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MELBOURNE - Eight teenage boys who have pleaded guilty over the filming of a 17-year-old girl being sexually assaulted have avoided terms in a youth justice centre.
The girl was filmed performing oral sex on two boys, had her hair set alight, was spat at and urinated on during the incident at a park at Werribee, in Melbourne's outer west, in June last year.
Yesterday at a children's court, a judge ordered all the boys to participate in a programme for male adolescents about positive sexuality.
He placed six of the boys on youth supervision orders and all but one had convictions recorded against them.
Two of the boys were placed on probation for 12 months.
The court was told the 17-year-old who escaped conviction had no direct involvement in the assaults and left part-way through the offending.
The judge told the boys they treated the victim in a cruel and callous manner. He described their behaviour as cowardly and brutal and said their offences were a serious breach of the criminal law.
He said that if it was not for their guilty pleas they would have been at "significant risk" of serving time in youth detention.
He said he also took into account the fact they had no prior convictions and their youth.
The eight teenagers - aged between 15 and 17 at the time of offending - pleaded guilty to charges of procuring sexual penetration by intimidation, one of making child pornography and one of assault.
The infamous DVD was sold to students in Melbourne for A$5 ($6).
It shows the girl pleading with the boys to stop as they torch her hair and force her to perform oral sex.
Her clothes were taken and thrown in muddy water with two boys using her mascara to scrawl the title of the movie across her chest.
- AAP
