Note: this report includes references to child abuse and details readers may find distressing.
A man found guilty of raping a four-year-old girl after luring her away with a watermelon will spend at least seven years in jail.
Nathaniel Farrell, 34, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last week after pleading guilty to one count of rape over the attack on the child in an Indigenous community in the greater Darwin region last year.
The court was told the victim was playing with a three-year-old boy when Farrell lured her into a house before digitally raping her after removing her nappy, according to an ABC report.
She was found walking back towards her house crying and repeating "the big man, the big man" after her mother noticed she was missing.
Farrell's DNA was found on the child's body after the police were called.
While it was his first sexual offence, Chief Justice Michael Grant noted Farrell had a long history of violence against women, as well as breaches of court orders.
"The offender's prospects of rehabilitation must be considered as all but extinguished, at least for so long as he continues abusing drugs and alcohol," Justice Grant said.
Farrell did not have an upbringing blighted by violence or alcohol abuse, the judge said, despite growing up in a remote community.
"In assessing the extent of that mitigating effect, I am unable to conclude that the offender has been subjected to disadvantage of any great degree and extent, or that there is any direct nexus between those circumstances and the offending conduct," he said, as reported by the ABC.
A suppression order banning the publication of his name was lifted last week.
Justice Grant said Farrell's offending was considered "towards the upper end of the range in terms of objective seriousness", describing it as "brazen" and noting the child was "very young and vulnerable".
"There was a degree of what the Crown has described as 'rudimentary planning' in luring the victim to a secluded location with the promise of watermelon," he added.
Farrell will be eligible for parole in 2032.
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