Keep abusers in jail instead, says Hetty

“THESE people shouldn’t be on the street, we shouldn’t have to be looking over our shoulder for high-risk offenders.”

On the back of the Gold Coast Bulletin on Saturday revealing more than 200 child sex offenders are living across the city, a child safety campaigner has questioned the need for a registry in the first place.

Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston said if these dangerous, sexual predators were still enough of a risk to the community that they needed to be monitored, why were they released.

“If all dangerous sex offenders weren’t released until they were of a low to no risk, then we wouldn’t need a register, because we would know exactly where they are, in jail,” she said.

“Our position is, we don’t believe that sex offenders who pose an ongoing risk to the community should even be released.

“That’s the bottom line, the really dangerous ones, the Daniel Morcombe killer, the Fergusons and Fardons, they’re repeat offenders and they’ve been released in the past because we have a high degree of attachment, or the judiciary does, to the civil rights of convicted sex offenders and less so on the human rights of children to be protected from these people.”

Ms Johnston said while a list of where registered child sex offenders were would be useful, not all predators had been caught.

“Most sex offenders aren’t on the register, they haven’t been caught. Most victims don’t tell and most sex offenders aren’t caught.

“We don’t want people to fall into a false sense of security by looking up a list and not seeing a name on it and thinking their kids are safe.”

She said Western Australia had a good model, which Queensland should take a look at adopting.

“In Western Australia, you can ring the police and they can give you an answer, whereas here you can’t,” she said.

“You can search and see who is living in your locality, without exact addresses.

“Then, if you’ve got a new neighbour, or a new teacher or somebody has come into your life, you can actually ring police and say ‘this is who I am, and this is my new boyfriend, my new neighbour, they’re spending a lot of time with my kids and I want to make sure they’re not on the register’, and they will tell you.

“The most common offenders are those who know our kids and have groomed us.”