A victim's mother says their family has been "torn apart" by a Canberra predator who sexually assaulted the child while on bail for raping another girl.
The perpetrator, a 20-year-old north Canberra man who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced in the ACT Supreme Court on Friday to three years, six months and 27 days in jail.
Justice Michael Elkaim backdated the sentence to commence in March 2021 and ordered the offender to serve just shy of two years before becoming eligible for parole.
The rapist had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of engaging in sexual intercourse with a child.
Agreed facts show he was 17 at the time of his first crime, which he committed while sleeping over at a friend's house in Canberra's south.
On two consecutive nights in March 2020, he woke his friend's seven-year-old sister, led her into a computer room, and raped her.
The victim told her mother what had happened in October 2020, when the matter was reported to police and the offender was arrested.
"I f---ed up good," the rapist told police as they took him into custody.
"I know what I did was wrong."
The offender was charged and granted bail the day after his arrest
Being on conditional liberty did not deter him from further child sex offending, as evidenced by his actions in March 2021.
That month, he and a 12-year-old member of his extended family were at his father's northern ACT home late at night.
After everyone else in the house had gone to bed, the offender started kissing the girl before taking her into another room. There, he raped the girl and caused her physical pain.
When his half-brother's partner subsequently challenged him about what had happened, the offender insisted the victim had "consented" and "wanted it".
His half-brother's partner "bloody belted him and got his arse up out of the house", as she put it, before the matter was reported to police officers who arrested the offender.
Having turned 18 before raping the second victim, the offender was remanded in custody at Canberra's adult jail, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, for 603 days prior to Friday.
His barrister, Mark Higgins, told the court the offender had an intellectual disability that resulted in him having an inability to read social cues like an average person.
Mr Higgins urged Justice Elkaim to structure a sentence that would result in the 20-year-old's immediate release from custody.
The ACT's chief prosecutor, Anthony Williamson SC, argued this would not be appropriate.
He read to the court four victim impact statements authored by members of the victims' families.
The first victim's aunt and carer wrote that the girl was angry with the offender, having "experienced things that no child should ever have to".
The girl's mother described how the victim had regressed in many ways after being raped.
"She would have uncontrolled rages ... for no apparent reason," the mother said, adding the rape had also left the first victim's brother racked with guilt about having been friends with the offender.
Addressing the defendant, the first victim's mother wrote: "You took away her innocence and childhood."
The second victim's mother described feeling like she had lost her daughter following the offending.
She said the girl had run away from home and not been to school for nearly two years, which Justice Elkaim found "most troubling".
The rape had not only affected the victim, the second mother said, but also her and the girl's siblings.
"It has torn the family apart ... this will never be fixed," the woman wrote.
The second victim's sister provided the final statement, which expressed fear for the future and described the offender's behaviour as "disgusting, predatory and selfish".
Justice Elkaim adopted those descriptions in sentencing, during which he also spoke of the "tragedy" of the offender having been sexually abused, neglected and exposed to substance abuse as a child.
While the judge took these things into account, he said the offender "must spend further time in custody".
As Justice Elkaim set a non-parole period expiring next March, he said the coming months would provide time for work to be done to ameliorate the rapist's above average risk of sexual recidivism.
