Details of further incidents in the remote community of Wadeye, unreported in the media, are emerging through the Darwin local court system, as defendants appear before judges, and The Mango Inquirer.
Wadeye-man Theodore Dulla pleaded guilty today over video link from Hotlze prison, on charges of 'Take Part In A Riot, Going Armed In Public and Aggravated Assault'.
With alleged co-offenders also in custody, Dulla pleaded guilty to his involvement in the incident; said to involve 20 people on 23rd June.
Details of the riot emerged as Judge John McBride read from the statement of facts in court today, revealing how an armed group allegedly with "assorted weapons, axes, compound bows, arrows, metal bar" approached the victim after he came out of his house.
The victim was shot in his left leg from five metres away; allegedly by two individuals with compound bows.
The judge read out from the statement of facts that Dulla "armed himself with a reo-bar [concrete re-enforcement steel bar] and threw it at the victim while he was injured with the arrows lodged in him, and struck him with it in the left buttocks, lodged in his body, causing a deep laceration."
The judge said: "Throwing a reo-bar at someone's buttocks is serious enough, but it does make it worse if the defendant is doing that after he's just watched two other people shoot arrows into his leg."
Dulla's legal aid lawyer Mr Cazwell said: "Mr Dulla played a lesser role than the two other defendants. While Mr Dulla's been in custody, he's missed the funeral of his big sister, and I understand Mr Dulla has a funeral for his mother coming up. Although there is no date yet. I understand there is a backlog, with the dry season.
"Your honour, Mr Dulla is likely to miss that, as a result of being in custody. I ask that you take that into account. He understands he shouldn't have taken part in joining the group with the others.
"In that, he's sorry for what happened to the victim. Mr Dulla also handed himself into police. It's the defence's submission that he should get some credit for that."
The prosecutor shared: "Your honour, the other co-offenders have not been dealt with. I've checked the files. The agreed facts do state or refer to the other participants as co-offenders."
It appeared the defendant Dulla was somewhat lucky on the timing of the situation; with a 12-month suspended sentence from 2023 expiring four days earlier, on 19th June.
The judge said: "I will think about the sentence and request a supervision report, 12th August.
"Mr Dulla, I'm going to ask corrections to talk to you, and maybe they'll do a report. You'll come back in a month. It's pretty serious. You're going to be sitting in jail for a fair while anyway.
"Corrections will talk to you. They'll give me a report, and then we come back on 12th August, one-months' time. I'll give my sentence then."
We are The Buttock Inquirer.
