GO CARD TO THE GOLD COAST
How the Government could have locked up sex monster Robert Fardon forever instead of giving him a train pass to his evil playground
SERIAL rapist Robert John Fardon was given a Go Card to travel on the train, a driver’s licence and sessions at a male “day spa” to “meet his sexual needs” before his secret release into the community.
The state’s worst sex offender was freed last week and living in a street full of families. Authorities will not say where he is and experts predict it is only a matter of time before he reoffends. Many of his “sadistic” attacks occurred in the northern NSW-Gold Coast region.
Fardon, 70, is not required to wear a GPS tracker and will have to tell police where he lives.
However, he would never have been released if the State Government had ticked off on key legal reforms four months ago.
Labor refused to debate a Bill tabled by the LNP in September that would have kept the sex monster off the streets and in a secure compound at Wacol prison. “This sadistic grub is unsupervised on the streets because of weak leadership and petty politics by Annastacia Palaszczuk,” LNP leader Deb Frecklington said.
SERIAL rapist Robert Fardon would have remained off the streets living under supervision in a secure compound near Wacol if the State Government had ticked off on key legal reforms four months ago.
Fardon would have been forced to wear a GPS tracker until the day he died.
The laws would have given the Attorney-General the power to determine when the supervision order ended, ensuring community safety was placed first.
Instead, Murwillumbah born Fardon, who has been offending since he was 18 in 1967, is free to return to the Gold Coast, where he is accused of raping a mentally impaired woman at Palm Beach in 2008.
The Bulletin can reveal the shocking consequences of Labor refusing to debate the LNP’s Protecting Queenslanders from Violent and Child Sex Offenders Amendment Bill last September.
Shadow Attorney-General David Janetzki said he introduced an urgency motion for the Bill to be debated and passed during the September 19 sittings.
“Our plan would have kept him under strict supervision – Labor’s plan is to play politics and hope Fardon now pops in to report to police,” Mr Janetzki said.
“It’s up to Labor to say when our Bill can be debated but I expect they will ensure it never sees the light of day. They would rather play politics than work with us to protect Queenslanders.”
The reform Bill is likely to be shunted off to a parliamentary committee, rather than have a full debate inside the parliamentary chamber, and it is unknown when it will surface again.
Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath yesterday said: “Queenslanders can rest assured
that our State has the toughest post-conviction monitoring system in the country”.
Photographs have emerged of Fardon at Central Station in Brisbane; there are reports he is living at Ipswich.
Coast MP Ros Bates and Gold Coast Centre Against Sexual Violence director Di McLeod, both of whom have given support to Fardon’s victims, predicted he would return
to the playground of his worst crimes.
“He should have a GPS tracker on him,” Ms Bates said. “He should be monitored around the clock.
“He should have an order where he can’t contact any of his previous victims. They don’t want to be living in fear of him turning up in their neighbourhood. We don’t want him on the Gold Coast.”
Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston believed Fardon would reoffend.
“This comes down to a legal contest instead of a moral contest, between his civil rights to freedom against the human rights of the community to be safe and for our children to be protected,” Ms Johnston said.
“Unfortunately our kids come second every time and it’s infuriating.
“We just shouldn’t have to be living in fear of this man. Children deserve much better than that.”
The Government took legal action to extend the supervision order first put in place five years ago and when that was rejected took advice only to be told there were no grounds for an appeal.
LNP Leader Deb Frecklington yesterday said the Premier was putting the community at risk.
“Make no mistake, this sadistic grub is unsupervised on the streets because of weak leadership and petty politics by Annastacia Palaszczuk,” she said.
“Annastacia Palaszczuk played Russian roulette with the courts and lost. It was clear from last year that Labor had no plan B and that has been proven today.”
ALMOST 16 years ago the State Government introduced the Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003.
This legislation was to protect the community from serious sexual offenders, serial rapists such as Robert Fardon who prey on innocent young children and unsuspecting adults he befriends.
Three years after the legislation passed the House the Government announced its intentions to introduce electronic monitoring of dangerous sexual offenders.
A year later, in 2007, laws were changed to enable the courts to impose electronic monitoring on the worst criminals. This legislation was touted as the toughest in Australia.
At the time the government used radio frequency monitoring and later, when the GPS technology was improved, switched across to the new system.
It is remarkable then, on reflection, that more than a decade later and this state’s most notorious sex offender, Robert John Fardon, remains free without a GPS tracker.
This newspaper has repeatedly detailed the failure of the delivery of the GPS tracker system on the Coast.
Accused criminals ordered to wear the ankle bracelets while on bail have been asked to return in seven days as the tracking devices were sent down from Brisbane.
Welfare support service leaders, MPs and the victims themselves say Fardon will return to the Coast where he has committed some of his worst crimes.
On news breaking of Fardon’s release yesterday, Attorney General Yvette D’Ath reassured Queenslanders that he would be an “automatic reportable offender for the rest of his life”.
After Fardon’s order under the 2003 legislation changed on January 9, he immediately came under the Child Protection (Offender Reporting and Offender Prohibition Order) Act 2004.
All that is required of Fardon is that he tells police where lives and travels, provides phone and internet account details. Failure to do so will result in five years jail.
Labor’s legal strategy with Fardon clearly failed. They put all their cards on winning an appeal which would have ensured his strict supervision and lost in the courts.
The LNP is correct in saying the Government did not have a plan B.
However, as reported today, there was no need for a plan B if Labor had agreed to tougher laws put up by the Opposition in September last year.
If amendments were passed back then, the Attorney General could have determined the strict supervision for Fardon. He could have been placed in a compound.
He would have had a GPS tracker for life.
Ms D’Ath concluded yesterday by saying “Queenslanders can rest assured that our State has the toughest post-conviction monitoring system in the country”.
But residents are terrified that their children could be sharing the street with Fardon. His previous victims are reliving their terror all over again.
Labor’s refusal to be bipartisan and support the LNP’s tougher laws again puts the community at risk. Politics has played Fardon a get free card.