Angel our young gun
A GOLD Coast advocate and model has been named the Queensland Young Australian of the Year for 2019.
Angel Dixon, 28, is the first agency-signed model with a physical impairment to feature on a national television campaign. She has featured on fashion week catwalks and is designing her own line of walking canes.
In 2009, when Ms Dixon was 19, she awoke one day with muscle soreness and tenderness in her legs. Later that day she was in agony and could not walk properly. She was rushed to the hospital and the next day was told she had suffered a stroke and had a clot on her spinal cord, which was causing paralysis.
Doctors told Ms Dixon walking may be “difficult”, but she has defied the odds.
The avid blogger walks, assisted with a cane, and runs, assisted by her husband. She has also taught herself to ride a bike again.
The Gold Coaster was honoured with the award at a gala event at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre last night.
Detective Inspector Jon Rouse of Ashgrove was named Queensland’s Australian of the Year.
Detective Inspector Rouse, 55, heads Task Force Argos which targets online child exploitation, and has been credited with helping to save countless children from horrific abuse during his 34-year career.
The battlefield has changed significantly since Insp Rouse started at the task force in 2001, when dial-up modems were still current, and sexual predators had begun using the internet to meet and lure young victims.
The squad has made incredible inroads into catching paedophiles, both in Australia and overseas, in part through taking over dark web forums and impersonating paedophiles in order to unmask and catch the real ones sharing content.
Inspector Rouse is also involved in a crackdown on the increasing number of Queenslanders who pay to watch the sexual abuse of children in the Philippines through livestreaming channels.