‘He will do it again’

MOTHER FE ARS PAEDOPHILE WILL REOFFEND

If he gets out he will do it again, people like this need to be stopped

A MOTHER fell asleep thinking she could trust the man she loved with her teenage daughter, but he took advantage of her under the same roof instead.

That afternoon early last year was the beginning of multiple sexual crimes by a 41-year-old convicted paedophile on a 13-year-old North Queensland girl.

The man, who also got a 15-year-old girl pregnant, has recently been jailed for the offending against the teenager, but her mother is scared he will do it again to another girl when he gets out. “A paedophile is a paedophile. No matter how many times they are locked up. I’m scared he will do it again,” the mother said.

The North Queensland woman, who cannot be named to protect her daughter, had been in an on-andoff relationship with her daughter’s attacker since 2015.

She said they reconnected in late 2019, and the first offence happened last year.

In the man’s court sentence for the indecent treatment and incest charges, Crown Prosecutor Kathleen Payne said the first act happened at their house while the mother was sleeping.

Ms Payne said the girl and the man sat and talked about “boyfriends and blow jobs” before the girl asked to perform oral sex on the man.

He didn’t stop the 13year-old girl.

It happened again in April last year, and the pair had sex in May last year.

This was all happening behind the mother’s back.

“I didn’t know the full extent of it, I had no idea what was happening,” she said.

“He was giving her weed and alcohol while he was on meth, and always offering her drugs. He was grooming her.”

Eventually, the girl started living with the man.

The mother laid some blame on police for not bringing her home, but legally police could not forcibly take the girl home as she was considered old enough to make her own decisions.

In June last year the man accidentally revealed his offending to police.

The girl’s mother was furious when she found out.

“I was angry, I would have done something about it if I had known,” she said.

“He was fooling me … covering his tracks to be with my daughter.”

The mother said she even intercepted coded letters sent between the pair when the man was in jail.

He was sentenced this month to four-and-a-half years’ jail, but is eligible for parole on December 10.

In the Townsville Police District this year, 129 sexual offences have been committed against children.

Of this, 107 offences were against young girls.

The mother says the man shouldn’t be allowed out of prison. “If he gets out he will do it again, people like this need to be stopped,” she said.

The mother said her relationship with her daughter was damaged, and there was a time when the teenager defended the man who groomed her.

“For a long time she was defensive of him. He had a way of charming people but it’s all just a load of rubbish. We don’t talk about it anymore. But people like him need to be stopped, because he will do it again.”