Dennis Nona By: Wayne Morin

A man told a court that he should not be jailed because he did not know that it was wrong to have sex with children.

The man, a well respected artist in Australia, is appealing his prison sentence for the repeated rape of a 12-year-old girl, saying that he did not know it was wrong.

42-year-old Dennis Nona said that he grew up on the Torres Strait island, where he was never taught that raping young girls was wrong.

Nona was found guilty of raping a 12-year-old girl in Canberra, and sexually assaulting her 14-year-old sister.

The younger girl discovered that she was 20 weeks pregnant and underwent a late-term abortion. The crimes are said to have taken place while Nona was completing a two-year art degree in Canberra.

Nona is challenging his sentence of nine years in jail, blaming his childhood and the practice of polygamy in his native Badu Island.