South Australians banned from knowing about alleged Salt Creek attacker

SOUTH Australians have been banned from knowing anything about the alleged Salt Creek backpacker sex predator, while the rest of the world can see his face and learn his history.

Mysterious man in silhouette

• FELLOW TRAVELLERS: Attack won’t deter other adventure-seekers
• IN HINDSIGHT: ‘As a backpacker, I know I was lucky’
• THE ATTACK: Man charged with brutal sex assault on backpackers
• THE RESCUERS: Fishermen speak out after a horrifying night
• THE ACCUSED: Alleged attacker’s chilling dating profile

SOUTH Australians have been banned from knowing anything about the alleged Salt Creek backpacker sex predator, in the most restrictive suppression orders in recent legal history.

The secrecy orders mean the public cannot see even an image of the man with his face completely pixelated.

As the orders were drafted, SA Police revealed a taskforce would investigate the man’s past, fast-track DNA analysis and check missing persons registers nationwide.

Assistant Commissioner Douglas Barr said Taskforce Coorong would re-examine the scene of the alleged crime.

He said items taken from the man’s home “did cause us some concerns which we will look at”.

“We’re not investigating any other crimes in relation to the man, but the very nature of this incident cries out to inquire into the background of this suspect,” he said.

“We will be trawling through his history and other persons he may have come across in the past few years at least.

“If it needs to be a huge extensive search (of Salt Creek), then that will be done.”

Police have searched the man’s home twice since his ­arrest, seizing numerous items including a laptop.

Assistant Commissioner Barr said police had spoken to one of the alleged victims – who flew out of Adelaide yesterday – but had as yet to interview her friend, who sustained serious head injuries.

She remains in a stable condition in Flinders Medical Centre, where she has received flowers from wellwishers, including strangers.

“Her medical treatment is the priority and that will remain the case until she is stable and in a good position to speak to police,” he said.

“They want their privacy respected. It is a horrific thing for any victim to go through and (we) are offering every support possible we can to help them through this horrible ordeal.”

Assistant Commissioner Barr said no one else was being sought over the incident.

Yesterday, at the urging of Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Ian Press, SC, the Adelaide Magistrates Court gagged publication of:

ALL photographs of the man, even if pixelated, and information from his social media accounts.

ANYTHING that shows, or even hints at, locations or identities related to his home, family and personal possessions.

ANY discussion of other ­offences the man may have committed.

The orders apply only in SA and do not restrict people interstate and overseas from knowing about the man and his alleged victims, who were foreign backpackers.

Mr Press told the court that was appropriate.

Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Ian Press

“There is a public interest, even an international interest, in this case ... the difference is that any jury will come from SA, not interstate or another country,” he said.

“This is about ensuring extremely prejudicial material about (the man) does not find its way into the public arena without prosecutors having the opportunity to consider it.”

The southern suburbs man, who is in his 50s, has yet to plead to charges of attempted murder, rape, aggravated cause serious harm and detaining a person to commit an indictable offence.

It is alleged he sexually assaulted one of the women, aged in her 20s, at Salt Creek before trying to murder her friend, also in her 20s.

Their identities, and how they met and came to travel with the alleged predator, are suppressed and pixelated photographs of them cannot be published.

Yesterday the man sat in the court dock, with his head bowed, listening to the suppression order argument.

One of his two guards used his body to block the public gallery’s view of the dock.

Mr Press told the court statutory suppression orders that cover alleged sexual assault cases were insufficient protection for the case.

He said he saw no conflict between the orders he sought and information given at SA Police’s press conference. “We do not seek suppression of the fact he is being investigated, only of any allegations that those investigations may potentially turn up,” he said.

The Advertiser and other media outlets opposed the orders, saying publication of the man’s identity was in the public interest and would aid Taskforce Coorong’s work.

They argued the community would be “comforted” if details of the case were published as it would silence rumours and “put fears to rest”.

Mr Press, however, said there was “a greater public interest” in police “doing their job without interference”.

Magistrate David Whittle agreed, but ordered the suppressions be reconsidered when the man enters his pleas.

ANALYSIS: STATE OF SUPPRESSION ERODES YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW

THE horrifying allegations coming out of Salt Creek this week dredge up not only chilling thoughts of the state’s criminal past, but also its notorious obsession with secrecy.

Suppressions imposed by the Adelaide Magistrates Court yesterday are some of the most draconian in recent history and have dumbfounded experienced journalists.

In a city that once suppressed even the colour of the Snowtown bank vault barrels and hushed up the flavour of a would-be killer’s poisoned sandwich, that’s saying something. And yet photos of the alleged sex predator have been deemed so prejudicial that The Advertiser cannot even show you a pixelated image.

In any similar case – be it in SA, interstate or internationally – blurred photos of alleged offenders would appear in the media as a matter of course.

The concern here is that prosecutors and the court have felt the need to go over and above that statutory restriction and place a ban on top of a ban.

SA is known far and wide as “the suppression state” and orders like these make it clear we won’t lose that tag anytime soon.

The worrying reality is that secrecy seems to be endemic in SA. It reaches into all levels of government – from your local council to the top tiers of Parliament.

The danger is an unchecked culture of secrecy impedes the crucial scrutiny that prevents people getting away with illegal acts that should be exposed for the world to see.

This is your right to know, and it’s being eroded every day.

- Sean Fewster