Gympie, Hervey Bay, Maryborough and Bundaberg rapists named
Sex crime in the Wide Bay region has increased to horror rates with the area recording rape and sexual assault higher than its southern neighbours. Now, some of Wide Bay's worst rapists can be exposed. Full list.
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Rape and sexual assault are among the most abhorred crimes in society and in the Wide Bay, these offences are being recorded at a higher rate than much of South East Queensland.
Since the turn of the century the number of sexual assault crimes across the Wide Bay police district has increased from 1290 in the three years from January 2001 to December 2003, to 1314 in the period from January 2019 to December 2021.
The offending rate has remained a steady 14 crimes per 100,000 people over those two decades.
Over that same period the number of rape and attempted rape crimes increased from 209 (a rate of three per 100,000 people) to 434 (a rate of 4 per 100,000 people).
The district’s crime rate for these offences was worse than those in the Sunshine Coast, Moreton, Gold Coast and Brisbane districts.
The Kilkivan district west of Gympie was the worst in the Wide Bay Burnett with offence rates per 100,000 people of 24 for sexual assault and seven for rape.
These were largely driven by significant spikes in offending in 2001, 2006 and 2008.
Bundaberg and Maryborough shared the equal worst rates of sexual assault offending of the Wide Bay’s major hubs with a rate of 17 per 100,000 people.
Gympie recorded the worst rate of rape and attempted rape crimes with 5 per 100,000.
Phoenix House CEO Jason Rushton said funding and services continued to be reactive, helping sexual assault victims after the crime has been committed instead of preventing it in the first place.
Mr Rushton said the Bundaberg-based centre, which receives funding to help victims as part of its services, was focusing on educating young men.
“If men are seen as the main perpetrators why is there not a program … to educate the young cohort going forward?” Mr Rushton said.
He questioned why, given the range of Ministry services available for groups including children and women, there was not one for men which would include this type of education within its mandate.
Sexual assault within same sex relationships appeared to fly under the radar too, he said.
This made for a lack of support when it came to stopping these crimes before they happened.
Here is a list of rapists who have been reported and convicted from across the region.
Businessman jailed for ‘violent’ rape of young girl
A victim of a well-known Bundaberg businessman has spoken about the “overwhelming” lifelong trauma she experienced after being raped and sexually assaulted by the father of four.
Geoffrey Charles Rogers, 59, who owns the two successful companies – AustralianSeafood.com and Wizard Drilling – was sentenced in Maroochydore in January 2022 for the “violent” sex crimes he committed against a girl who was under 16 at the time.
Rogers had previously pleaded guilty in the Gympie District Court to 12 charges in total.
He was sentenced in Maroochydore District Court on Thursday to two counts of rape, two counts of common assault and three counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16.
Crown prosecutor Catherine Birkett said in 1998, when Rogers was 36, he sexually assaulted the victim who was 15 at the time.
Judge Glen Cash described the offending as “violent” and “very serious to say the least”.
He sentenced Rogers to nine years’ prison with parole eligibility after four and a half years.
Pensioner jailed for rape and eight other child sex offences
A 42-year-old Monkland man has been jailed until 2025 for raping and sexually abusing three young girls over a prolonged period.
Albert Charles Marc Cronin pleaded guilty in November 2021 to 11 charges stemming from the abuse, including three counts of rape.
Gympie District Court heard Cronin molested the girls over a two-year period.
Judge Glen Cash said that while the intellectual impairment meant Cronin was “not fully aware of the harm (he was) causing … we will not tolerate people who prey on young girls”.
He sentenced Cronin to nine years jail, and ordered that he not be eligible for parole until May 8, 2025, when Cronin had served three-and-a-half years of his sentence.
Double amputee pleads guilty to horrific sex crimes
A 73-year-old double amputee has been convicted of several sex offences, including indecent treatment of a child under 16 and rape.
John Harvey Barker pleaded guilty in Gympie District Court in October 2021 to grooming a child under 16, six counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16, rape and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Barker was jailed for three years, with the sentence suspended for five years.
‘You should be treated with contempt’: Violent rapist jailed
A Gympie man who bashed a woman, raped her, then enlisted his mother to pressure the victim into dropping her complaint, has been jailed for seven years.
Wolvi man Rema Henry John Pooley, 31, pleaded guilty in September 2021 to dozens of offences in Brisbane District Court.
Pooley’s offences included, most seriously, rape, multiple counts of common assault and assault occasioning bodily harm, and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Pooley was granted parole-eligibility on May 19 next year, after he will have served one-third of the seven-year head sentence, taking into account the 613 days of pre-sentence custody he had served.
Gympie rapist tried to pressure his victim to drop charges
A South Australian man has been jailed until at least October 2022, after he pleaded guilty to raping a young woman twice, before trying to force her to drop her charges, in Gympie.
Anthony Mark Moulden, 39, was 37 when he preyed on the woman after getting drunk with her, her sister and the sister’s de facto partner – who Moulden worked with at the time – at a home at The Dawn on May 4, 2019.
Judge Nathan Jarro said Moulden’s actions were “calculated” and “driven simply by a selfish desire for sexual gratification”.
He said the victim was “vulnerable and intoxicated”, and Moulden took advantage of her.
The court heard the victim had since struggled with “feeling crippled and sick inside” and a “pain she can’t escape”.
Moulden pleaded guilty in July 2021 to two counts of rape and one count of attempting to pervert the course of justice, with Judge Jarro noting he had served some 291 days in pre-sentence custody.
Judge Jarro sentenced Moulden to six years’ jail, with a parole eligibility date set for October 2 next year.
‘Woke up to moaning’: Rapist jailed for heinous birthday assault
A young Fraser Coast man raped a teen twice on her eighteenth birthday, with the court hearing his victim woke mid rape to the “sound of moaning”.
Point Vernon man Jasey Keepa Harrison, 20, a New Zealand citizen who was attended high school at Urangan, pleaded guilty in Brisbane District Court in July 2021 to two counts of rape.
The victim, who had celebrated her eighteenth birthday the night prior, woke to the “sound of moaning” and pain in her vagina from Harrison’s digital penetration.
Harrison was jailed for five years, to be suspended after serving 18 months behind bars.
‘I just wanted to f — k’: Home invader’s sick ‘apology’ after rape
A Bundaberg woman woke in terror to find a naked intruder in her bed, doing the unthinkable.
Gavin Mark Warren Lovejoy had broken into her home, crawled into her bed and started performing oral sex on her, causing her to wake up screaming.
Harrowing details of the attack were detailed in Bundaberg District Court on Thursday where Lovejoy pleaded guilty to three charges – burglary, rape and sexual assault with circumstances of aggravation.
The court heard on May 15 Lovejoy, 28, had broken the screen on the woman’s bathroom window about 1am before making his way to her bedroom.
There, he “cuddled” his sleeping victim before pulling her pants down and assaulting her.
In September 2021 Lovejoy received a head sentence of three years in jail with 131 days in pre-sentence custody declared as time served.
The jail sentence will be suspended after 12 months and hang over his head for four years.
Child predator lured girls into park toilet, raped them
A child predator, who lured two young girls into a toilet block and raped them, did so because he wanted to get his sexual attraction to children “out of his system”.
Sickening details about the day a nightmare scenario for parents played out in a public park for one Fraser Coast family, were read out in Maryborough District Court.
There, Darren Richard Williams, 55, pleaded guilty to one count of indecent treatment of a child and two counts of rape.
The court heard his victims were aged just 7 and 8 at the time of the attack.
They had been playing in a park at Torbanlea with a younger child in January last year, while their parents were at a nearby bowls club.
The younger child was taken back to the adults, leaving the 8-year-old girl by herself.
Williams told the lone child the women’s toilet was closed, luring her into the men’s bathroom by telling her she may have a disease.
Inside the toilet, he exposed his penis while pretending to show her how to use the urinal before he told her he wanted to “check to see if she had vaginitis”.
In May 2021 Williams was given a head sentence of eight years in prison, with 467 days of pre-sentence custody he had spent behind bars declared as time served.
Former citizen of the year jailed for child rape
A former senior citizen of the year has been jailed for the rape and repeated sexual assault of a nine-year-old girl.
Over a two-year period in the 1980s Gordon Lloyd Adams took a young girl to a number of isolated locations where he sexually abused her and on one occasion forced himself onto her.
The girl was aged between nine and 12 at the time.
In July 2018 Adams, 65, was sentenced at Brisbane District Court to six and half years jail for rape and indecent treatment of a child under 12.
In 2013 Adams was awarded the Gympie Senior Citizen of the Year award.
McCulkin killer Garry Dubois had raped before
The man convicted of raping and murdering 13-year-old Vicki McCulkin and her 11-year-old sister Leanne spent eight years in jail for an unrelated rape.
Two years after leaving prison in 1972, Garry Reginald “Shorty” Dubois helped abduct and kill the McCulkin girls and their 34-year-old mother Barbara on January 16, 1974.
A Brisbane Supreme Court jury in 2016 convicted Dubois, from Torbanlea, of the rape and murder of Vicki and Leanne, the manslaughter of Barbara and the abduction of all three victims.
His body was found in his jail cell at Maryborough in 2021 after he reportedly took his own life.
If this has caused issues for you phone Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Wide Bay’s worst districts for sexual crimes since 2001 ranked by crimes per 100,000 people
Fraser Island – 49 (31 reported crimes)
Kilkivan – 24 (99 reported crimes)
Bundaberg – 17 (2514 reported crimes)
Gin Gin – 17 (211 reported crimes)
Maryborough – 17 (1384 reported crimes)
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