LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The justice system sometimes lets victims down very badly and the legacy can be decades of anguish. This next story is a shocking example of that.

More than 30 years ago, a 12-year-old girl was plied with alcohol, gang raped and left for dead.

The judge, later a chief justice, more or less blamed the victim and the rapists were never jailed.

Only now, all these years later, has the victim been able to even read the judgment and tonight, she tells her story to reporter Josie Taylor.

JOSIE TAYLOR, REPORTER: For years, this mother of two has been battling her past.

XAN FRASER: They raped me. They abused me. They left me for dead. ... Why did he not sentence them to jail?

JOSIE TAYLOR: For hairdresser Xan Fraser, being well-presented is part of the job. But lately, keeping up appearances has been getting harder.

XAN FRASER: People who know me, they would be shocked right now because I've always been a happy person. ... But now I'm a sad person and I cry ... and I can't push it down anymore.

JOSIE TAYLOR: In 1981, Xan Fraser was 12 years old. She and her family had just moved to Eagleby between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

XAN FRASER: I was kind of like any other kid, really. Um, until one night when I decided to go to my friend's house to meet her go to roller-skating. And I got intercepted by another young girl. ... I decided to go with her and that was probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life. And it has changed my life forever. (Getting emotional).

JOSIE TAYLOR: There were older boys at the house and plenty of alcohol. The 12-year-old Xan Fraser drank spirits for the first time and later blacked out.

XAN FRASER: Apparently they walked me up to a bush which was 200 metres from the house that we were at, which was only around the corner from my house. I was told that they raped me, sodomised me, played with me for hours, took all my clothes off. ... They surmise that they panicked, decided to take me back to the original house. There was a panel, old panel, Holden panel van in the yard and they took me body, my naked body, and they put it on the dash and they put my head through the steering wheel and they snapped it onto lock. Now whether they were trying to kill me or whether they were trying to secure me in that spot, I don't know.

JOSIE TAYLOR: She has no memory of what happened that night.

XAN FRASER: And then I woke up in my hospital bed and, um, I looked down at my hands and I could see I had mud in my fingernails and I was like, "Why have I got mud in my fingernails? I don't understand. Where am I?" And my mum looked over at me and she was beside me and she was crying and she was holding my hand and she said, "I'm sorry, but you've been raped."

JOSIE TAYLOR: Three boys were arrested, and according to police documents, admitted to raping and indecently dealing with the unconscious 12-year-old. When the case came to trial, Xan Fraser was required to appear as a witness in the Supreme Court before Justice John Macrossan. She was still just 12 years old.

XAN FRASER: I did have no fear. I walked into that courtroom and I got up on the stand and the only concern I had was that I wasn't gonna be able to read the oath properly because my reading wasn't so great and I'd embarrass myself in front of my rapists. That was my main concern. It started, the questioning started. Even as a child I could tell where they were going with this. They were like, "How much make-up did you have on that night? How tight were your jeans? Were your jeans so tight that you had to lie on a bed and do them up with a fork or a coat hanger?" I was just so angry in my head at the time, I was so angry thinking, "Why are you picking on me? I'm not the one who's hurt anybody here."

JOSIE TAYLOR: The three offenders were found guilty of indecent dealing and attempted rape. Justice Macrossan sentenced them to two years' probation. None went to jail. The judge went on to become the Chief Justice of Queensland.

XAN FRASER: The judge, I feel like he raped me again.

JOSIE TAYLOR: In his sentencing remarks, Justice Macrossan said, ...

(male voiceover): "There is no doubt in my mind that the offence occurred as a result of the very large quantity of drink which the girl took acting with complete imprudence and utter disregard for her own well-being. ... had the girl ... retained some degree of consciousness it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that in that condition she may have consented to your acts. Who's to know? ... The girl has not been, so far as I can judge, in any way upset by her experience ... I do not think I have ever heard in the witness box from a more composed 12 year old."

JOSIE TAYLOR: Justice Macrossan died in 2008. It was only this year that Xan Fraser read his sentencing remarks for the first time.

XAN FRASER: I was shaking. I was reading what this man had written about me and I was totally disgusted. I was totally enraged. I was shaking in my lounge room, hearing in my head as I was reading what he was saying about this 12-year-old child.

HEATHER DOUGLAS, LAW, QLD UNIVERSITY: I thought they were pretty horrifying sentencing remarks. They're quite unlike the kinds of sentencing remarks you'd get now, but quite horrible and certainly suggested that the victim was somehow on trial for the offences.

JOSIE TAYLOR: After the trial, Xan Fraser returned home to Eagleby. She said she was repeatedly assaulted and bullied as a result of the rape. She had her first child at 13 years old.

XAN FRASER: After I was raped I wasn't ever, not once, had been seen by a social worker. There was not even the school had any idea of what had happened to me. There was no, "Let's tell the headmaster, let's warn the teachers, let's handle this girl a little bit carefully, if she's feeling upset, send her home." There was absolutely nothing.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Xan Fraser is happily remarried and lives in Melbourne with her daughter. Her son is a teacher. She says raising her children has been her finest achievement. She now wants to write a book about her life, but Xan Fraser is also examining her legal options, which include suing the Queensland Government for damages.

GEORGE DEFTEROS, LAWYER: There's two avenues we're looking at. One is a crimes compensation. The other is an application for an ex gratia payment by the Queensland Government.

JOSIE TAYLOR: What does justice mean for you?

XAN FRASER: I just didn't want to have it pushed under the carpet. I want people to know how I was treated as a child. And I want to make other people realise that the court systems were wrong and they did the wrong thing by me and I don't want to lie down and let that just disappear.

LEIGH SALES: Unbelievable. Josie Taylor reporting.