Adelaide schools increase security amid series of attempted abductions

A SERIES of child abduction attempts has spurred Adelaide school communities to intensify safety measures, as official figures show hundreds more serious child sex offenders are on the state’s streets.

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• Surge in sex offenders places burden on SA prison system

A SERIES of child abduction attempts has spurred Adelaide school communities to intensify safety measures, as official figures show hundreds more serious child sex offenders are on the state’s streets.

Teachers, police, and parents have acted quickly to protect students after a spate of abduction bids. Some schools have urged students to walk to school in groups of three, one is investigating installing gates, and others have briefed pupils about how to remain vigilant.

In one of five recent incidents in the southern suburbs, a 16-year-old girl was leaving her Somerton Park home for school last week when a short-haired man aged in his 40s stopped and waited for her outside the home.

Similar incidents have been reported in Reynella East, Seaview Downs, Morphett Vale and Kilkenny.

The new threat comes as figures from the Australian National Child Offender Registry show there are now 1875 known sex offenders in South Australia, including 1558 who are not currently in custody.

The figures show there are now 274 more predators on our streets than in March, 2013, and 81 more than this time last year.

Separate figures show the number of sex offenders in the state’s overburdened prison system has risen almost 40 per cent in the last year.

The ANCOR figures reveal that at least 577, or about a third, of the SA child sex offenders outside of jail, are repeat or serious sex offenders.

These “serious registrable offenders” have offended at least twice against a child under 14 or at least three times against older children. They can also be declared a serious registrable offender if they badly abused the same victim multiple times within 24 hours or their offence is particularly heinous.

SAPOL has deemed 13 sex offenders so dangerous they have used laws that allow them to fit GPS tracking devices.

Despite the devices tracking their every move, eight of those high-risk predators have breached their conditions.

Since first using the GPS powers in March last year, SAPOL has had 13 paedophiles fitted with the devices. Nine remain active and four have been suspended — three because the offenders have been locked up while one has moved interstate.

Acting Officer In Charge of the Special Crimes Investigation Branch, Inspector Trent Cox, said GPS monitoring had been a valuable in detecting child sex offender breaches.

“GPS monitoring can play a very important part of the management of those registered child sex offenders who are identified as being of very high risk of reoffending,” he said.

He said GPS monitoring was one of many options available to investigators to monitor the activities of convicted child sex offenders.

In the wake of the recent abduction bids in the southern suburbs, Reynella East College principal Caroline Green has urged her students to walk in groups of three while going to and from school. Seaview Downs Primary School is investigating installing gates after an attempted abduction.

Seaford Rise Primary governing chair Jackie McCormack agreed stranger danger was a live issue among parents.

“It is definitely something we have been reiterating to all our children,” she said.

“You don’t want to scare them, but you do want to make them aware. It is not about doing too much different but reinforcing what they have already been told so that they are alert.”

Willunga High governing chair Simon Rothwell said the school’s principal had made students aware of the dangers outside their school gate and implored them to stay alert.