Ray Yeeda: Kimberley man sentenced to 4 1/2 years jail for raping woman in remote Kimberley community

A 60-year-old man who sexually assaulted a woman in a remote Kimberley community has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years jail. Ray Yeeda appeared before WA District Court on January 24 for sentencing — after being found guilty of sexual penetration without consent during a trial in Derby last year. Between 2006-2009, Yeeda was at a house with a woman when he called her into a room before raping her, despite the woman pleading for him to stop. The woman did not tell anyone about the offence after Yeeda threatened her to not disclose what happened. District Court Judge Christian Miocevich said the sexual assault was “opportunistic” and that the perpetrator had a criminal record aggravated by alcohol abuse. It was revealed Yeeda, who is from a well-known Kimberley pastoral family, had spent much of his life working on stations across the Kimberley and Pilbara. Judge Miocevich deemed imprisonment the only appropriate punishment for the offending and sentenced Yeeda to four-and-a-half years in jail, backdated to November 10 last year and made him eligible for parole.