SA: Elder who traded sex for petrol jailed for eight years

AAP General News (Australia)
08-29-2007
SA: Elder who traded sex for petrol jailed for eight years

By Todd Cardy

PORT AUGUSTA, SA, Aug 29, AAP - Shamefaced Aboriginal elder Winkie Ingomar stood motionless
as he was sentenced today to eight years jail for trading petrol to sniff for sex with
three teenage girls.

Ingomar, 52, had pleaded guilty to five counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with
the girls, two aged 13 and one 14, between January and June last year.

The abuse took place in his caravan at a bush camp near the small indigenous community
of Yalata, 1,000km northwest of Adelaide.

Each time, the girls went inside the caravan alone to have sex or be touched by Ingomar
before taking and sniffing petrol he owned, the SA Supreme Court sitting in Port Augusta
was told.

Sentencing Ingomar today, Justice Margaret Nyland said he had exploited the serious
addictions of his victims for his own sexual pleasure and breached his position of trust
in the community.

"The fact that you engaged in sexual intercourse with these girls, knowing that the
girls intended to do so in order to have access to petrol to sniff, makes your offending
particularly bad," Justice Nyland said.

Ingomar, who was a supervisor of the community's vehicles, hung his head, clasped his
hands together in front of him and kept his eyes closed for most of the hour-long sentencing.

The court heard the abuse, reported to police by a female member of Yalata, had torn
the community apart and caused considerable stress on the girls who had moved from their
homes in shame, fear and anger.

"These were young girls," Justice Nyland said.

"You were an elder in the community and a lot older than them. They had known you all
their lives. They obviously trusted you. You should have protected and cared for them,
instead you abused them."

One of the 13-year-old girls said she felt like she was "hiding away inside" herself
and had now developed a fear of men and strangers.

Another said she was at times too frightened to sleep at night while a mother of a
victim described the emotional pain as if she had been "hit by a bullet in the chest".

A planned video-link for the people of the Yalata to watch the proceedings in Ceduna,
300km west of Port Augusta - in what was to be a first for a South Australian indigenous
community - was abandoned after a person of the community died.

Justice Nyland was scathing of the time it took for the case to come to court, saying
a lack of suitable and available interpreters had extended Ingomar's period of custody.

Ingomar needed an interpreter who spoke his native Pitjantjatjara language.

"These difficulties will continue to affect matters trying to deal with these problems,
unless something is done about it," she said.

Despite the delay, Justice Nyland said she treated Ingomar's pleas of guilty, which
were made last month in a plea deal as the case was listed for hearing, as sign he was
sorry and she believed he had a good chance of rehabilitation in prison.

Justice Nyland jailed Ingomar for eight years with a non-parole period of five years.

AAP tkc/sl/cjh/bwl

KEYWORD: INGOMAR NIGHTLEAD

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