The top court stories that shocked Ipswich and made headlines in 2021
From a truckie jailed for a fiery crash which killed a young mum to a pregnant teen who slit a child’s throat with a piece glass, these are the top court stories to make headlines in Ipswich in 2021.
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Hundreds of tragic, confronting, scandalous and downright weird matters are heard in the Ipswich Magistrates and District courts each year and 2021 was no different.
From a truck driver who was jailed for is role in a fiery crash which killed a young mum to a pregnant teen who cut a child’s throat in a scary home invasion the following are some of the biggest stories to come out of the Ipswich courthouse this year.
Ipswich police officer called himself ‘PervDad’ and pretended to be teen girl
An Ipswich police senior constable called himself ‘PervDad’ and adopted the persona of a 13-year-old girl and engaged in explicit conversations with others, telling them their “pleasure was paramount”.
What Moores Pocket man Justin Troy Owen, 47, didn’t know was that even by pretending to be a child he was guilty of producing child exploitation material.
Owen pleaded guilty in Ipswich District Court in August to producing and distributing child exploitation material at Ripley between March 3, 2019 and May 12, 2020.
His repulsive communications as ‘PervDad’ and other adopted personas included sending images of a female child in swimwear, sending a picture of a female child in a leotard alongside sexualised conversation, pretending to be a girl aged 13 or 14 to engage in graphic conversations with others including discussing rape and pretending to be a teacher at a dance school in New Zealand who had had sex with underage students, where he commented, “Your pleasure is paramount”
When first spoken to by investigating officers Owen said he did not believe the conversations to be examples of child exploitation, the court heard.
Defence barrister Mr Taylor argued that the offence was at the lower end of the spectrum but conceded that “the acts described are depraved”.
He was convicted and sentenced to a 12-month jail order immediately suspended, plus a two-year supervised probation order.
He must do counselling and programs.
Truck driver jailed for fiery crash which killed young mum
In May this year, the truck driver responsible for the fiery crash that claimed the life of a 21-year-old mum was jailed after pleading guilty to dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death.
Ipswich District Court heard Dale Bayre was driving a Kenworth along the Cunningham Highway near Aratula when a vehicle stopped to make a right turn in front of him.
Unable to swerve or stop in time, Bayre’s vehicle slammed into the back of 21-year-old Sharee Harvey’s car, pushing it about 95m before it slammed into a tree and caught fire.
Another truck driver, Bradley Morrison, stopped and was able to save Ms Harvey’s baby girl Paige from the back seat.
Ms Harvey was trapped in the wreckage and unable to be rescued despite the desperate efforts of both truck drivers and she perished in the flames that consumed her car and the truck.
Bayre faced sentence this year, some seven and a half years after the tragedy.
Bayre lived in Victoria which made it difficult to contact him and police missed an opportunity in October 2017 to execute a warrant.
The Crown prosecution’s case was that Bayre failed to keep a proper lookout and failed to keep a safe distance behind the other vehicle.
“There is no allegation that he intended to harm or was intentionally engaging in reckless behaviour,” she said.
Bayre was convicted and sentenced to three years jail, with the sentence to be suspended for three years after he serves six months.
He was disqualified from driving for two years.
Child molester hides behind wife to avoid media over sick sex acts
A 59-year-old man avoided jail due to “exceptional circumstances” after pleading guilty this year to molesting a teenage boy in 1997.
Harold Ernest Lawrence assaulted the 13-year-old boy four times over the course of a year at Laidley Heights.
The Ipswich District Court heard how the victim tried to forget and suppress memories of the assaults, at times turning to alcohol and drugs to cope.
On one occasion Lawrence showed the boy magazines before performing a sex act over his pyjamas and another time he masturbated over the boy’s shorts.
Supported in court by his wife of seven years, Lawrence pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16 and one count of indecent treatment of a child under 16 – expose.
The court heard Lawrence was involved in a serious motorcycle accident in 2003, which saw his lower abdomen “split in two.”
As a result of his injuries, his defence barrister said Lawrence has no sexual function or “sensation” in his penis.
She said Lawrence was a mature offender with a relevant criminal history of child sex offences occurring around the same period, for which he was sentenced in 2006.
Lawrence was given an 18 month head sentence to be suspended immediately for two years and one day of presentence custody was declared as time served.
Popular photographer who abused teenage boy “not pedophilic”
A popular Ipswich photographer with thousands of Instagram followers was jailed for indecently treating a teenage boy.
Tye Randall Hooper, 30 faced Ipswich District Court in September and pleaded guilty to four counts indecent treatment of a child under 16.
The offending happened in June 2020 and the court heard the victim was a 15-year-old boy.
Details of the offence cannot be published to protect the identity of the victim, save that Hooper was intoxicated when he committed the disturbing acts.
Defence barrister Stephen Kissick said Hooper’s personal circumstances of diagnosed adjustment disorder, maladaptive coping mechanisms, underlying depression and anxiety, and work-related stresses should be taken into account.
“This man is not pedophilic and is generally pre-social,” he said.
The court heard the teenager was left distressed by the offending which affected him psychologically and affected his schooling.
Hooper was sentenced to a two-year jail term, to be suspended for three years after he has served four months behind bars.
‘You have a sexy body’: Child rapist jailed for heinous acts
A Lockyer Valley man raped a 12-year-old girl three times in two days while also indecently treating her, the Ipswich District Court heard in October.
Gatton man Levi James Wilshire, 29, pleaded guilty to three counts of rape and one count of indecent treatment of a child under the age of 16.
The first two rapes were committed on April 2 last year, while the third rape and the indecent treatment occurred two days later, all four occurring at Gatton.
The first group of offending involved orally and vaginally raping the girl, telling her, “You have a sexy body”, the court was told.
The second group involved Wilshire shining a torch on his penis in front of the girl and retracting his foreskin repeatedly, telling her, “This is what a d--k looks like in the daytime”.
He then vaginally raped her.
Crown prosecutor Hamish McIntyre told the court the girl told him to stop and tried to push him off her.
Defence counsel Stephen Kissick told the court his client was homeless at the time of offending and was addicted to cannabis with sporadic methamphetamine use.
Judge Orazio Rinaudo sentenced Wilshire to eight years’ jail, with parole-eligibility set at June 18, 2023
Ipswich teacher, musician avoids jail time after indecently treating child
Morgan John Hann, 37, was sentenced this year for committing a sex crime against a child in Ipswich in 2019.
The well known teacher and musician pleaded guilty in the Ipswich District Court to one count of indecently treatment of a child under 16 in September.
He was given a nine-month prison sentence suspended for three years.
The court heard the victim was not a student.
Hann was a former Bremer State High School music teacher and was a member of an alt-country band called the Suicide Swans which made three studio albums.
In September the prosecution dropped two other charges against the man which were possessing child exploitation material and grooming.
The day after Hann was charged by police his teacher’s registration was suspended after working in the sector for at least 10 years in various roles.
Pregnant teen cuts child’s throat in shocking home invasion
A woman pleaded guilty in December for her role in a grossly violent home invasion that left a young vulnerable girl’s throat cut and ear severed.
Legally the Queensland Times cannot name the woman responsible for the attack as she was 17 at the time of the crime and to protect the identity of the child.
The court heard the teenager was dating the child’s then 32-year-old father and the shocking assault happened at a grandmother’s Ipswich home on November 9 2020 at 5.30pm.
The man’s legal counsel alleged the girl, who was pregnant at the time, was propelled to carry out the attack because the man yelled at the teen from across the street, “just slit their throat or I’m coming to punch you in the face”.
The teenager who had taken a large quantity of alcohol and methamphetamine smashed her way through a window, before breaking into the grandmother’s refuge.
The Crown said the young woman carried out a wanton and relentless attack, “slashing (the seven-year-old) with a piece of glass from her ear to her throat causing serious and longstanding injuries,”.
The grandmother was beaten and fell unconscious after getting her head stomped on.
“We are scared both physically and emotionally. (She) required emergency surgery to repair the severed ear and surgeries to her throat, in all she needed 400 stitches,” the grandmother said through tears.
The woman pleaded guilty to burglary with violence and property damage, assault causing bodily harm, and committing a malicious act with intent.
Judge Lynch sentenced the woman to six years of detention and said she would be eligible for parole in three years – which the Crown had recommended.
No conviction was recorded for the violent burglary with property damage charge and the assault causing bodily harm charge.
The young girl’s father will be trialled for his alleged involvement in February 2022.
‘I think you’ve killed him’: Thugs administer brutal retribution
A young Ipswich man recalled the morning he woke to see a stranger standing over him with a metal baseball bat and the bloody aftermath of a group of four’s ‘misguided’ attempt at vigilantism.
Beaudesert man Jayden Yee, 23, Crestmead woman Baeley Yuile, 22, Brassall man Samuel Connolly, 18, and Boronia Heights woman Jessica Davies, 19, appeared in Ipswich Magistrates Court.
Each pleaded guilty to two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm while armed in company and one count of entering a dwelling with intent at night while armed in company.
The court heard Yuile instigated the assaults and asked Yee, Connolly and Davies to meet her at a Raceview house and beat one of the occupants on December 19, 2020.
Yuile had arrived at the house about 2am after meeting some of its occupants at a hotel in Yamanto but a young man Yuile did not know returned to his home to find her asleep in his bed and demanded to know who she was.
She went on Snapchat and told Davies to gather a group to come to the home, ask for the man who had woken her and “jump him”.
Another resident of the address, a young man, woke to see Connolly and Yee standing in his bedroom.
Yee grabbed him by the shoulders, asked who he was and then struck him in the face when he did not reply.
Yee then found the man who had woken Yuile and struck him in the face with a metal baseball bat.
The man curled up in a ball and was repeated assaulted until one of the offenders said “I think you’ve killed him.”
The group then proceeded to destroy property inside the home belonging to both of the men they assaulted, also damaging the home itself.
Yee was sentenced to three years imprisonment with immediate parole.
Yuile was also sentenced to three years imprisonment, with parole on March 3 next year.
Connolly, at 18 years old with no previous convictions, was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment with parole after five months, on March 12 next year.
Davies was sentenced for her role in the assaults to two and a half years imprisonment with parole on February 12 next year.
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