Conviction of Aussie band's 'sixth member' reveals Byron Bay's dark side

Rachel Kila has waived her right to anonymity to speak out against the culture she grew up in. (Supplied/ABC News: Brigham Edgar/Sharon Gordon)

The girl in the photo is smiling for the camera, her hair in a side ponytail, a trucker cap on her head.

In another snap, she looks into the distance, standing in front of a stretch of palm trees with fronds glossy and green from the damp air of Byron Bay.

It is the sort of photoshoot familiar to many girls who grew up in the early 2000s, when digital cameras, mobile phones and the internet were still fresh and exciting.

Warning: This story contains references to sexual abuse and degradation.

The teenage girl's name is Rachel Kila. She was 15 when she received a text from someone who had spotted her around town.

"Hey, I've seen you around, I think you are cute, we should meet up some time xjedx," the text read, according to agreed facts filed in the Byron Bay Local Court.

Jed Daniel Gordon, then 21, met with the teenager in December 2002.

He invited her for a drive, and they had sex in the back of his car — the start of months-long sexual abuse that has had a decades-long impact on Ms Kila's life.

"The facts are that he was an adult, and I was still a child."

Ms Kila has waived her right to anonymity to speak out against the culture she grew up in — one in which it became normalised for older boys and men to groom and have sex with girls in their early teens then publicly humiliate them.

Jed Gordon is the brother of a Parkway Drive member and was part of their merchandise team. (Supplied)

She is one of 35 people to speak to the ABC about the experiences of young girls in Byron Bay in the early 2000s — a time when the town's hardcore music scene started to rise.

Fifteen women have alleged to the ABC they were raped or sexually assaulted by older boys or adult men when they were as young as 12, and seven said they were in "relationships" with older boys or adult men in their early teens.

Some of the women described being sprayed with urine, faeces and semen, and being spied on during sex, part of a culture of public degradation they said was pervasive in the popular tourist resort town.

"The place was gorgeous, paradise, and yet this is what it was like underneath," one woman, Jessica Hayhoe, said.

At least three women said they left school early because of their experiences and many described issues with relationships, intimacy and drugs and alcohol because of the men's behaviour.

Another woman said: "Every single one of my friends made it to their 18th birthday with at least two stories of being