Fraser Coast child killer back in court for molesting 12-year-old girl

A man convicted of murder when he was 15, has pleaded his case for what he has since done to a 12-year-old child left in his care.

A Maryborough man convicted of murder in his teenage years has faced a judge again, after committing a ‘predatory’ act on a young family member.

Thirty one years after a Fraser Coast boy went to jail for murder, he has been convicted of molesting a 12-year-old girl while left in charge of her on her birthday.

The man, now 46 and who cannot be named for legal reasons, was supervising the girl in 2024 at her family home while her mother was at work, Crown Prosecutor Kate Droney told the Maryborough District Court this week.

He went into her bedroom as she was texting her friends on her phone, and asked if she wanted him to get rid of the cat’s litter box.

The court heard she told him she would do it, but he did not leave the bedroom.

Instead, he sat down on the edge of her bed, put his hand under the blankets, through the bottom of her shorts and onto her right thigh.

The victim told him to get out of her room and then locked her door, but that did not stop him.

He then put his hand on her underwear covering her vagina, at which point she grabbed his wrist and pulled it away, then told him to get out of her room.

The man got off the bed and asked her to get undressed, which she refused to do. After he left she locked her bedroom door.

Later that morning, the man asked her to open the door, and after she refused, he used an implement to unlock it himself.

He offered to take out the litter box again, to which she declined again.

The court heard he then told the girl to take her shorts off three times, before having an inappropriate conversation, which led the girl to text her mother and sibling about the situation.

He was arrested at his own house later the same day and taken to the Maryborough watch house where he declined to participate in an interview.

This week he pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful treatment of a child under 16 (domestic violence offence).

Lawyer Ian Whitton told the court his client was put into foster care in Cherbourg as a child, where he was a victim of abuse.

An impact statement from girl’s mother said she was “still withdrawn” after the incident.

Mr Whitton said the man was “moved to tears” when his instructor took him through the statement.

The man got off the bed and asked her to get undressed, which she refused to do.

Judge Nathan Jarro described the act as “clearly predatory” before informing the court the man had spent time in Lesley Wilson Youth Detention Centre for murder from the age of 15, before being transferred to Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre when he was 18.

He was released on parole by 21.

“Your offending... represents a significant breach of trust,” Mr Jarro said.

“She was only 12 years-of-age, for goodness sake.”

He was sentenced to 12 months jail, suspended after three months with an operational period of three years.

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