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She was asleep in her home when they came in the middle of the night. And that was the beginning of a night from hell for the young woman whose story we reported today. Raped repeatedly by one of the six young men -- he was 15 at the time -- and subjected to a brutal assault, involving hammer blows to her head, she was left for dead. But she survived and eventually identified her assailant.

We learned this week that the courts handed down concurrent sentences for rape, burglary, false imprisonment, and grievous bodily harm with intent to kill (a category in law which falls just short of attempted murder).

Her attacker's punishment? Five years in a youth offenders' centre, with the possibility of parole under the 50 per cent remission scheme. Given that this horrific attack took place over a year ago, this young offender could be walking our streets again within the next 18 months.

Listeners contacted our programme to express outrage at the sentence in this case, and to call for the abandonment of the 50 per cent remission policy for crimes of this seriousness. Overwhelmingly, they argued that sex offences of this kind need to be matched by sentences that reasonably reflect our community's sense of outrage, and that the release of this sex offender in such a short period of time, notwithstanding his young age, is an insult to a victim who survived against all the odds.

After the programme, I was contacted by the young woman who escaped death in this attack. She wanted to say how encouraged she was by so many comments from our listeners, and how much support she took from a sense that the community was standing with her and standing up for her. She is an absolutely remarkable person who embodies the difference between being a victim and being a survivor.