Turkish Security Guard Raped & Degraded Australian Teenager

A very disturbing story of an individual who decided to abuse his position of power in order to abuse a young girl emerges from Melbourne:

A Coles security guard who pressured a young shoplifter into having sex with him said it was the most shameful act he had ever committed on another person, the County Court has heard.

Turkish national Onur Yildirim, 26, has pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual penetration of a 16-year-old child who was under his care, supervision and authority.

The court was told that on July 11, Yildirim was working at Coles in Knox City in Melbourne's east when he saw the girl take a bottle of body spray from the store without paying.

He took her to the manager's office and told her that if he reported her to police it could ruin her life, but if she offered him sex he would not report her.

The girl told the court in an impact statement that by agreeing to his demands "I got myself out of that situation but then I got myself into a worse one".

CCTV footage of the incident shows Yildirim leading the girl to a disabled toilet in the shopping centre where they stayed for nine minutes while Yildirim penetrated her.

Yet again we see the familiar pattern; an immigrant from an alien country abusing the hospitality of Australians by using his position to abuse a vulnerable member of their society.

Yildirim's counsel Peter Chadwick, SC, said his client did not have a criminal past and had come to Australia looking for work with his electronics degree.

He described Yildirim's action as a lapse of judgment which had "catapulted him from a law-abiding, upright, fine member of the community to a prisoner".

In his statement to the court, Yildirim said he was very remorseful and left work early that day because he realised the enormity of what he had done and how shameful he felt.

Raping and degrading a young girl just because you can is not a "lapse of judgment" - that is an insulting statement which implies anyone is capable of such a thing, should they feel they can get away with it.

I don't believe this is true. I also don't believe that the "enormity" of committing such a crime would only dawn on one after it had been committed. Yildirim took a calculated risk, and he must have known the potential consequences before he acted - but he acted anyway because he thought the circumstances gave him enough power over his victim to get away with it.

Mr Chadwick said that if he was sentenced to more than one year's jail he risked being deported to Turkey and away from his current partner.

If? There's an element of doubt? This was a very serious crime, which this young girl will doubtless always be affected by in some way.

Also, wasn't the onus really on Yildirim to consider the potential effect on his life and that of his "partner" before he raped a schoolgirl? I don't really see any reason to feel sorry for him.

Prosecutor Michelle Zammit said there had been a level of aggravated degradation involved with the girl forced to lie on the toilet floor and the sex carried out without a condom.

She said the girl had told him three times during the sexual assault that she didn't want to go ahead with it but he continued.

"That makes it more than just a lapse of concentration or a foolish slip," she said.

She told Judge Christine Thornton that a suitable penalty for the crime was in the six to eight year range.

I would have thought that went without saying; telling an inappropriate joke is a "foolish slip" - I think raping a young teenager falls into a slightly different category for most people.

I would personally say a "suitable penalty" was in the 25 year + range; they're talking about a calculating rapist, a grown man who targetted a young girl he had power over, as if he's a naughty schoolboy who couldn't possibly have realised what he was doing was wrong.

He simply thought he could get away with it, that's the bottom line. When will we wake up and protect our most vulnerable, our children, from these predators?