SYDNEY, Australia — An Australian judge may be sacked after she failed to imprison three men and six teenage boys who pleaded guilty to gang-raping a 10-year-old Aboriginal girl.

Justice Sarah Bradley said the victim “probably agreed” to have sex with the men from Aurukun, a violence-plagued Aboriginal community on Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula. She noted that even the prosecutors in the case had not asked for custodial sentences.

But Prime Minister Rudd said he was horrified by her decision. “I’m disgusted and appalled by the reports that I’ve seen in today’s newspapers on the case.”

Queensland’s attorney general, Kerry Shine, has called an urgent meeting with the state’s director of public prosecutions to discuss the sentences. He added that a child under the age of 12 could not consent to sex under Queensland law.

“It seems to me that the circumstances of the offense were quite horrific and it therefore leads me to believe that the sentence was extremely lenient and, to say the least, needs explanation,” he said. Aborigines were entitled to expect the same “justice outcomes” as others.

Six juveniles aged between 14 and 16, were placed on 12 months probation for the offense, which was committed in 2005. The three older men, aged between 17 and 26, received suspended six-month sentences.