More than 50 convicted criminals are too dangerous to live free according to State Government
Bikies, bushfire arsonists and tourist stabbers are among the convicted criminals the state says are High Risk Offenders. See who’s on the list.
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Bushfire arsonists, sex offenders, police bashers and former bikies are among the convicted criminals deemed to dangerous to live unmonitored in the community.
Each Wednesday, the Supreme Court holds a High Risk Offenders list where applications by the Attorney-General to keep offenders monitored are decided.
A review by The Advertiser of the lists have shown the type of offenders the state is trying to keep on extended supervision, including conditions akin to home detention.
OFFENDERS IN THE COURTS DEEMED HIGH RISK
Malcolm Kym Vawser
64-year-old found guilty at trial of deliberately lighting a bushfire of Frith Rd, Clarendon in February 2014. The fire had the potential to destroy a nearby power plant which supplied electricity to thousands of people.
Vawser was a CFS volunteer at the time of the fire and had attended a training only hours before lighting the fires.
Police found instructions for building home made bombs and detailed information on how to use them in plans at Vawser’s home.
He was sentenced to seven years in prison with a non-parole period of four years and six months in August 2016.
He was declared a High Risk Offender and placed under supervision on July 9, 2021.
Shaun Timothy Smith
34-year-old ex-navy officer jailed for attacking two police officers in the Roxby Downs Tavern.
Smith was grossly intoxicated and harassing customers in April 2018 when the police were called.
As he was asked to leave Smith entered a “drunken rage”, twisting away from the police officer and striking her in the process.
He then placed the male officer in a headlock and dragged him to the ground, striking his head on an air conditioner as they fell to the floor.
The officer lost consciousness and had to be taken to hospital for treatment.
Smith was jailed for two years and six months with a non-parole period of 18 months in 2018.
He was declared a High Risk Offender and placed under supervision on March 3, 2021.
Nikola Novakovich
50-year-old man who was acquitted of the Outback murder of Coober Pedy schoolgirl Karen Williams.
However, he has served periods of imprisonment for aggravated assault and serious criminal trespass.
One of his most recent sentences was for eight years and two months with a non-parole period of five years and six months.
He was released from prison in December 2019 on an extended supervision order.
Last week Novakovich again appeared in the Supreme Court where a new application has been made.
No decision has been made in the application which is continuing before the Supreme Court.
Kristan Russell Bradley
45-year-old man who became the first conviction for the charge of choking, strangling or suffocating. The court heard Bradley had not been able to control his anger over a trivial matter – his partner leaving his mobile phone in town.
Bradley pinned the victim to the wall and placed a hand around her throat and squeezed for around a minute on February 11, 2019.
She did not lose consciousness. During sentencing, Judge Barry Beazley said Bradley had a long history of offending against the woman and breaching conditions of court orders.
Bradley was sentenced to two years, six months and 26 days in prison with a non-parole period of 16 months.
An interim supervision was made in September with the matter set to appear again in court next month.
Damien Keith Hall
31-year-old man who was jailed for four years and two months with a non-parole period of two years and nine months after a standoff on Hindley St involving a fake gun.
In November 2016, Hall – then an ice addict – armed himself with a fake gun and went to the Cumberland Park home of his pregnant former partner.
He forced her and their children – aged three and seven months – into a car, threatened her neighbour and drove off, sparking a 90-minute police chase through the suburbs.
Hall drove through Rundle Mall and down Hindley St, where he threatened police with the cap gun before STAR Group officers fired a single shot, ending the incident.
A year prior to the offences Hall had indecently assaulted a woman in her home.
Is currently contesting the application for extended supervision and will appear in court next month.
Ben Nicolle
30-year-old man jailed for two years, nine months and three days for charges of indecent assault, unlawful sexual intercourse and possessing child exploitation material.
Nicolle repeatedly groped and sexually assaulted young women on buses.
In June 2015 he groped an 18-year-old girl on a bus.
A short time later he indecently assaulted a 13-year-old girl on another bus.
The court heard during sentencing in 2016 that the 13-year-old had been left traumatised by the offending and had lost all trust in males.
When police searched his home they found child exploitation material.
Declared a High Risk Offender and placed under extended supervision on September 6, 2021.
Benjamin Robert McPartland
Stepfather of Chloe Valentine who was sentenced to seven years in prison for her manslaughter by criminal negligence with a non-parole period of four years and two months.
McPartland, 35, repeatedly forced four-year-old Chloe to ride a motorbike, then ignored her fatal injuries.
She died in 2012 from her injuries.
Both McPartland and Ashlee Polkinghorne, Chloe’s mother, served lengthy terms in prison for the manslaughter of the young girl.
While on parole McPartland repeatedly breached his parole conditions including returning a positive drug test and being unaccompanied with a child under 14 years.
Declared a High Risk Offender and placed under extended supervision on June 30, 2021.
Anthony Edward Wells
A former Mongols bikie who bashed a kidnapped man who had been bought to his house while Wells was on bail.
He was jailed for two years and three months with a non-parole period of one year and eight months for the assault.
Wells was one of several people involved in the incident. However, he was not charged with the kidnapping itself.
Declared a High Risk Offender and placed on extended supervision on March 12, 2021.
Antoni Baressi
28-year-old jailed for four years and seven months with a non-parole period of two years and seven months for stabbing French tourist Maxime Michel at a national park in January 2017.
Baressi fled the scene after stabbing the young man and was arrested 20 minutes later at a nearby railway station.
Mr Michel suffered non-life threatening injuries but required surgery to repair the damage to his throat.
During sentencing submissions the Supreme Court heard that Baressi had befriended the two men at a backpacker’s hostel, but had been suffering delusion bought on by illicit drugs.
Declared a High Risk Offender and placed on extended supervision on October 6, 2021.
Daniel White
32-year-old man jailed for cutting the throat of a three-year-old child.
White was jailed for three years and 10 months with a non-parole period of two years for the crime of aggravated intentionally causing harm.
White had lived in a granny flat at the back of a property where the young boy and his mother lived.
After the attack police found written notes in the granny flat which showed White had a desire to “remove the boy’s head instantly”.
White, who had a history of drug use, did not apologise or show any remorse during the court hearings.
Declared a High Risk Offender and placed on extended supervision on June 9, 2021.
Robert William Symonds
Also known by the moniker “Mother Goose” Symonds, 70, was acquitted of sex offending against teenage boys in 2011.
But in 2018 he was found guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse with a teenage boy and jailed for two years and two months.
Symonds was long suspected to be a child sex predator and was named in the Mullighan Inquiry into sexual abuse.
Symonds argued during both trials that he had been set up by other sex offenders.
Has fought the application to declare him a High Risk Offender. The decision has been reserved by the Supreme Court.
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