Man jailed for luring 4yo girl away from front yard and violently raping her

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse.

A man who raped a four-year-old girl in a Darwin town camp after luring her away with watermelon while she played in a front yard last year has been jailed for at least seven years.

Nathaniel Farrell, 34, pleaded guilty in the Northern Territory Supreme Court to one count of rape following the June 14 attack and was sentenced to 10 years in prison with a seven-year non-parole period last week.

The court heard the girl was playing in the yard with a three-year-old boy when Farrell lured her into a house where he removed her nappy and violently digitally raped her before tying the nappy back in place.

The girl's mother quickly noticed her missing and called police before finding her walking back towards her house in tears, repeating "the big man, the big man".

After realising the child was bleeding under her nappy, the girl's mother again called police who found Farrell's DNA on her body.

In sentencing, Chief Justice Michael Grant said while it was Farrell's first sexual offence, he had a long history of violence against women and breaches of court orders, including parole and domestic violence orders.

"The offender has a history of offending against women and presents a continuing danger to the community, and particularly female members of that community," he said.

A stable upbringing

Chief Justice Grant said although Farrell had grown up in a disadvantaged remote community and started drinking and abusing volatile substances as a teenager, "his upbringing was quite stable and not blighted by domestic violence or alcohol abuse".

He said like "many teenagers", Farrell had experimented with drugs as a youth and moved on to cannabis and methamphetamine as an adult, but under the circumstances his addiction was not a mitigating factor.

"Although it may be accepted in a general sense that the offender grew up in the circumstances of social and economic disadvantage which blight Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, and that has some mitigating effect, that consideration cannot lead to the imposition of a sentence that is disproportionate to the gravity of the offending," he said.

Chief Justice Grant said Farrell's offending involved "the egregious sexual abuse of an infant causing injury" and was "towards the upper end of the range in terms of objective seriousness".

"The child was very young and vulnerable, the offending conduct was brazen," he said.

"There was a degree of what the Crown has described as 'rudimentary planning' in luring the victim to a secluded location with the promise of watermelon."

Suppression order lifted

Chief Justice Grant also lifted a suppression order banning the publication of Farrell's name and declined a request from his lawyer the he be marked "at risk" due to a "fear of being hurt in the prison as a result of this offending being made public".

"That is not a sufficient ground on which to be marked at risk under the relevant practice direction but I will make sure my associate tells the sheriff what your concern is," he said.

"That is ultimately a matter for the correctional authorities, he does not seem to be suffering under any sort of duress at the moment."

Farrell will be eligible for parole in 2032.