Kilburn mum starts online petition to keep serial paedophile Gavin Shaun Schuster in jail

AN Adelaide mother has launched an online petition to stop a serial paedophile from being released into the Kilburn community.

‘He doesn’t have a preference between girls and boys’

• COURT DECISION: Paedophile ordered to be released to live near playgrounds
• LOCAL MP: Kilburn should not be a dumping ground for paedophiles
• LOCAL PARENT: Kilburn families will have grave concerns
• SCHUSTER’S VILE CRIMES: Stress ‘triggers attacks on children’

AN Adelaide mother has launched an online petition to stop a serial paedophile from being released into the Kilburn community.

Gavin Shaun Schuster, who has spent most of his adult life behind bars for child sex crimes, is applying for release into a facility on Carroll St at Kilburn, several hundred metres from a children’s playground.

Local mother-of-four Jodi Daniels started an online petition to stop Schuster’s release and has already gathered more than 500 signatures.

“I’m local and live not far from there, I am all for giving people second chances but this guy is a serial offender and he doesn’t have a preference between girls and boys,” Ms Daniels said.

“He’s said that he intends to reoffend and even talked about areas he intends to target. My youngest children are aged six and seven, so they’re right in his target range.”

Ms Daniels is also distributing a hard-copy petition in local businesses and in letterboxes and will on Tuesday meet with Adelaide federal MP Kate Ellis before also handing the petition to Attorney-General and local state MP John Rau.

“We’re hoping that we can work with (Ms Ellis) on this, and we would love John Rau to step in and we’re hoping he will actually listen to the community,” she said.

Supreme Court judge John Sulan last week ruled that Schuster should be released under strict conditions, despite the 40-year-old having been previously deemed unwilling or unable to control his sexual instincts.

In 2000, he was jailed for the rape of an eight-year-old girl in a school toilet block and was released in 2008, only to be taken back into custody after concerns he would reoffend.

The court has heard Schuster has befriended and abused children since he was 12 and offends when he feels “frustrated” by daily life.

Justice Sulan took into account doctors’ reports arguing that Schuster would become “institutionalised” if he was not released back into the community to stay at a supervised facility.

Justice Sulan conceded Schuster would “always” remain a risk to children, but noted “nothing is perfect in this world”.

“I don’t think him becoming institutionalised is worth letting him out into the public, he’s in close proximity to playgrounds and shopping centres, the areas that he has identified as easy areas,” Ms Daniels said.

Mr Rau on Monday said he supported a planned appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions against Schuster’s release and would leave it to the courts to determine the paedophile’s immediate fate.

Ms Ellis last week said the State Government should intervene to halt Schuster’s bid for freedom.

Ms Daniels’ petition can be found here.