A 2-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted in a remote town in the Northern Territory was at a "foreseeable risk" of harm, according to a report on the incident.
In February, a 24-year-old man was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting the toddler in Tennant Creek, 500 kilometres north of Alice Springs.
A report from the NT children's commissioner tabled in the NT parliament on Wednesday revealed that after the alleged sexual assault, the girl was taken to Tennant Creek Hospital, where she was given a blood transfusion, and tested positive for an unnamed sexually transmitted infection.
The girl was also provided with post-exposure HIV medication (PEP), which is designed to prevent HIV transmission when there is risk of exposure.
The commissioner found that the 2-year-old girl's injuries were "significant and painful".
"This was not the only violence that [the girl] had been exposed to, and experienced, in her short life."
The commissioner found that there were 52 child protection notification reports relating to the children in the family, dating back to 2002.
"The reports related to concerns regarding experience of, and exposure to domestic violence and parental substance abuse, lack of education (attendance), neglect, emotional harm, physical harm and sexual abuse of the children," the report said. "All possible harm types have been identified for these children."
Police had also had many interactions with the family.
"Significant contact with police had also occurred with [the 2-year-old's] siblings and both parents, culminating in over 150 recorded interactions," the report stated.
Within the family there were multiple convictions, including eight for aggravated assault, and six for driving under the influence.
In April, the toddler and one of her siblings were removed from the care of her family by the South Australian Department for Child Protection.
But the commissioner's report found that it was foreseeable that the girl had been at risk of harm prior to the alleged sexual assault, and this risk could have been managed or mitigated.
The NT government has accepted the recommendations of the report, but Territory Families, the agency with oversight for child protection, disagreed that it was a foreseeable risk that the girl was at risk of sexual assault.
"Any assessment of the risk to children must be made objectively and without emotion, the evidence and factors considered must be credible and not based on comments from professionals who have very limited contact and do not have sufficient understanding of the history, context and background of the family," Territory Families said.
"Some of the quotes in the report that are apparently relied on are from staff at the South Australian hospital after a very short time spent with the family in an environment when the family would understandably be traumatised or under stress."
The report had originally been uploaded to the NT parliament's website with redactions, likely due to the case currently being underway before court.
However, the redactions were not made properly, and people accessing the PDF file could discover the text under the redactions.
The NT Child Commissioner's office was informed of this error, and shortly after a new version with proper redactions was uploaded.