Mackay Whitsunday sex offenders jailed in 2023
From a teacher who molested multiple boys to a man who paid foreign mothers to sexually abuse their children these are 14 men jailed in 2023 for sex related offences.
Police & Courts
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Here are 14 men from Mackay Isaac Whitsunday jailed in 2023 for sex offending throughout the region.
Brent Sean McKee
A mother sat quietly in court and watched as the teacher who molested her young son, as well as six other boys, was told he would only have to spend another three months in jail.
Her young son still has nightmares about the vile assault.
“I actually thought I was going to throw up,” the woman, who cannot legally be identified, said.
“It’s affected his entire life in that he struggles to trust teachers.”
Her shock and anger was mirrored by other victim’s family members in Mackay District Court who watched as Brent Sean McKee learned his fate.
McKee, then 28, had been working as a music teacher when he molested seven boys aged eight to 12 years old between January and December 2020 at Sarina.
The majority involved touching the boys outside their clothing on their buttocks but there was one instance of putting his hands inside the shorts of one of the boys.
The court heard McKee would position himself close to the boys and then rub them.
McKee, now 30, pleaded guilty in May 2023 to 15 counts of indecent treatment of children and one count of possessing child exploitation material.
Barrister Scott McLennan said it was “accepted that offending by a teacher towards his students attracts a strong emotional response from the community”.
“The offences here are acts of non-penetrative touching,” Mr McLennan said.
“There’s no direct skin on skin contact on the genitals, there’s no force and there’s no threats.”
The court heard McKee had voluntarily engaged in psychiatric and psychological help and had been treated for about 12 months.
McKee was jailed for two years and 10 months to be released on two years’ probation after serving nine months in total.
He walked free in August 2023 and the remaining jail term will hang over his head for four years.
FULL STORY HERE
‘The violence here is particularly significant’
A monster father has been jailed for 9.5 years for the violent sexual abuse of his own daughter that included holding his hand over her mouth to “mute her screams” as he raped her.
The horror crimes, revealed in Mackay District Court, began when she was just 10 years old, continuing over five or six years up to 2021.
He even attacked her as she recovered from surgery.
Crown Prosecutor Matthew Sutton said the man only stopped raping his daughter at their home in the Mackay region after she went to police.
“The violence here is particularly significant,” Mr Sutton said.
“He was her dad and he raped her.”
His vile conduct included threatening to kill her if she told anyone, holding his hand over her mouth “to attempt to mute her screams” as he anally raped her, and telling her to “shut up when she commenced crying from the pain” during a different rape.
The 52 year old, who cannot be named because it would identify his victim, pleaded guilty in May 2023 to eight counts of rape and one count each of assault with intent to commit rape and maintaining a sexual relationship with a child.
Barrister Scott McLennan said the offending was “another sad case where essentially the abused became the abuser”, describing how his client was subjected to emotional, physical and sexual abuse growing up at home and in foster care.
“He’s a very damaged man,” Mr McLennan said, adding his client was “extremely ashamed” of his conduct.
Judge Michael Burnett jailed him for 9.5 years but opted against setting a parole eligibility date or an SVO.
The man will have to serve 50 per cent of the term before he can make a freedom bid and since he has already spent 636 days in presentence custody, he will be eligible for parole in May 2026.
FULL STORY HERE
He ‘corrupted young girls’
A “depraved” Mackay region man who “corrupted young girls” for his own pleasure has been jailed for six years.
His vile conduct involving eight victim children was detailed in court and paints “a rather disturbing picture”.
The 23 year old had what he labelled a “spank bank” of child sex abuse images, of girls aged five to 15, he used for his “own sexual gratification”.
He groomed a 12-year-old Sunshine Coast girl via Snapchat over six months, sending her explicit videos and photos and threatening to rape her with three mates if she did not send him naked images.
Mackay District Court heard on the back of this threat, he forced her to send vulgar photos and videos, some that included her pet dog.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, took sexualised photos of his 14-year-old sister while she was in the shower or getting changed.
And when he was 20 he began a two-year sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl, which involved elements of BDSM – it was accepted this was consensual.
The man pleaded guilty to a raft of charges maintaining a sexual relationship with a child, possessing and producing children exploitation material and child grooming committed between December 2019 and February 2022.
Barrister Paul Rutledge, instructed by Barron and Allen Lawyers, said there was “no excuse” for his client’s conduct but highlighted he entered an early guilty plea, was young at the time (22), was still young and had no criminal history.
“He’s already trying to rehabilitate himself,” Mr Rutledge said, adding he was “taking up religion big time”.
Mr Rutledge said his client was doing “hard time” in jail.
“He’s a rock spider as far as they’re concerned and they’re going to get him,” Mr Rutledge said.
Judge Vicki Loury said she had “real concerns about the deviancy” – his comments to the young girls were “utterly disgusting and designed to corrupt them”.
He was jailed for six years, with parole eligibility on March 10, 2024 after serving two years.
Convictions were recorded and the 355 days on remand was declared time already served.
FULL STORY HERE
Willie Arthur Mareko
A perverted and “truly horrendous” online monster paid to watch and direct little Filipino children being sexually abused to sate the depths of his depravity.
Justice Graeme Crow said the former Hamilton Island man’s behaviour in seeking out and sending money overseas for child sexual exploitation incentivised desperately poor families to abuse their own children.
Willie Arthur Mareko made requests to 11 woman in the Philippines for sexual abuse material in relation to 13 children.
Mackay Supreme Court heard he received it in relation to four victims aged 12 years and under between 2018 and 2021 while he was living in Northern Territory and the Whitsundays.
Horrific details of his vile conduct including offering to pay a mother to watch her children eat faeces and asking if she would ever kill her children, were revealed in court.
“Many, many children have been severely damaged by your actions,” Justice Crow said before jailing Mareko for 14 years.
Mareko, 36, pleaded guilty to 18 charges including procuring a child to engage in sexual activity outside Australia, using a carriage service for child abuse material, causing a child to engage in sexual activity with another person and grooming a child to engage in sexual activity outside Australia.
Mr Rutledge told the court his client also could not be punished over the conversation regarding faeces nor should it be inferred he was seeking a snuff film as he was not charged over that chat.
Justice Crow labelled Mareko’s offending as “truly horrendous” and involved actively directing the conduct of adult women in abusing their children for payment.
He must spend at least eight years in jail before he can apply for parole. He has already spent 692 days in pre sentence custody which was declared time already served.
FULL STORY HERE
Kaibaua Toom
A young woman has been haunted by ongoing “nightmares” of her time on a luxury Whitsunday Island after a worker crept into her room and sexually assaulted her as she slept.
“Every night when I’m getting ready for bed I have to remind myself that my attacker won’t be able to hurt me again,” she told him in her emotional victim impact statement.
“If I don’t tell myself that I simply cannot fall asleep at night.”
The terrifying incident occurred a few years ago when the pair were both working on Hayman Island.
Mackay District Court heard they had initially met at a staff bar and shared a kiss.
But she later found out Kaibaua Toom, who was working as a landscaper, was a married father of four and shut down any advances.
Months later she had been sleeping in her room when Toom crept in through a faulty sliding door.
Crown prosecutor Caitlin Penfold told the court, “The sentence proceeds on the basis that he entered her room mistakenly, however, once inside he recognised her from her previous interactions and he offended against her.”
“The Whitsundays always will now be the place I was assaulted,” she said.
Toom, 34, pleaded guilty via an interpreter to sexual assault.
The court heard Toom, who is from Kiribati in Oceania, had been in Australia on a working visa and since his arrest remained in the country on a criminal justice visa.
He would be deported once this matter was finalised.
Ultimately Judge Michael Byrne determined Toom should spend some time behind bars, jailing him for 18 months to be suspended after serving two months.
Convictions were recorded.
FULL STORY HERE
Young girls were plied with booze
Shocking details of a horror house of child sexual abuse have been revealed as a young man involved in the vile behaviour was released from jail while one of his victims looked on.
At this home, just off the Bruce Highway south of Mackay, young girls were allegedly plied with alcohol by the father of two boys engaging in sexual conduct with underage teens, a court heard.
The younger of the two brothers orally raped his nine-year-old half sister when he was aged 15 to 17.
Crown prosecutor Katrina Overell said he walked into her room, said hello and then forced his penis into her mouth.
Then when he was 18, he groomed his sister’s 13-year-old friend offering to buy her alcohol pops for oral sex.
Ms Overell said at the time the child had been in a sexual relationship with his older brother “and plied with alcohol by (his) father”.
Mackay District Court heard he was in a relationship with another 13-year-old girl, also introduced through his half sister.
The young man was arrested in March 2022 and remanded in custody, along with his older brother and father, and had since spent 356 days in jail.
In March 2023 the 22 year old pleaded guilty to six offences including rape, carnal knowledge of a child under 16, indecent treatment of a child under 16 and possessing child exploitation material involving three victim children.
Defence barrister Stephen Zillman said his instructions were his client “did indeed come from a dysfunctional environment at home”.
He said the rape did not involve any “gratuitous violence”, was very brief and there was no attempt to persist.
Judge Vicki Loury accepted the man had entered early guilty pleas saving his victims from having to give evidence and acknowledged he had spent a long time in custody for a young man with no criminal history.
She sentenced him to 365 days jailed with immediate release on a two-year probation order. Convictions were recorded.
FULL STORY HERE
Hunter Riley Campbell
A young man has “emotionally torn” a woman “to pieces” after he raped her multiple times while she passed in and out of consciousness on a couch.
Former Pioneer State High School student Hunter Riley Campbell sat in the dock as Mackay District Court heard details of his “most abhorrent” offending on August 3 last year.
Crown prosecutor Cameron Wilkins said Campbell had been out drinking with the woman when they returned to a Walkerston address.
“(She) was so intoxicated that she could not walk straight and had to close her eyes so as to not see double,” Mr Wilkins said.
Mr Wilkins said she remembered feeling pressure and waking up to see Campbell’s face near hers and his hand near her pants.
“He immediately said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry … I’m sick in the head’,” Mr Wilkins said.
Defence barrister Scott McLennan, instructed by Wallace and Wallace, said the now 20 year old had “made a dreadful mistake whilst grossly intoxicated”.
Judge Coker said he accepted Campbell’s early guilty pleas were a “reflection of genuine remorse” but his actions were a “gross breach of (the woman’s) right to her own body and her own circumstance”.
He said the victim described having been “emotionally torn to pieces” and she now suffered from flashbacks, nightmares and emotional, physical and financial damage.
“I still have trouble leaving the house some days even over a year on,” she wrote in her victim impact statement.
“I am so broken, I have trouble trusting men in my family.”
For the two rape charges, Campbell was sentenced to two-and-a-half years jail to be suspended after serving four months with an operational period of three years.
For unlawful and indecent assault, he received a two year probation order.
Convictions were recorded.
FULL STORY HERE
Horror dad had fantasies about raping step daughter
A vile father unleashed revolting sex abuse acts against his young step daughter including telling her he had “heaps of opportunities to rape her” – now he’s upset how he is being beaten up in jail.
This sets the tone for a highly sexualised home in the Mackay region where he plied his sons’ underage girlfriends with alcohol and allowed them to engage in sexual conduct, sometimes while he watched or listened from outside their bedroom.
Mackay District Court heard the father was in his late 20s when he started making “sexualised, weird comments” about his quasi step daughter’s body – she often had to stay with him while her mother, who was in a relationship with the man, was at work.
The Mackay region man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, called her “dirty” and then pulled a pair of used underwear from the washing pile and sniffed it in front of her saying “something about her not being innocent”.
When she was seven she walked in on him watching pornography, he showed her naked photos of boys and asked if she found them attractive – when she said no, he asked if she was a lesbian.
Crown prosecutor Caitlin Penfold told the court as she became older, he made comments about “having heaps of opportunities to rape her” and “spoke about fantasies about raping her”.
The court heard one time one of the underage girlfriends had thought she was engaged in a sex act with the man’s son only to realise she was being digitally raped by the father who laughed when she became upset.
In 2023 the man pleaded guilty to rape and two counts each of indecent treatment of a child under 12 and permitting abuse of child under 16 on premises.
Barrister Paul Rutledge said his client’s time in custody had been hard because the news “slipped out” about his offending.
“So he’s become a marked man within the corrective services system,” Mr Rutledge said.
The man was jailed for five years with parole eligibility on September 10, 2023 after serving 18 months.
Convictions were recorded and he, like his sons, will be a reportable child sex abuse offender.
FULL STORY HERE
Dean Henry Irvine
A Whitsunday teen is “struggling to see a future without constant darkness” after she was molested by her father’s drunk mate.
Dean Henry Irvine went into the young teen’s room late one night in mid 2022 after her father had gone to sleep under the impression Irvine had left his home.
But he had returned.
Mackay District Court heard the teen was in bed semi undressed when Irvine, then 30, repeatedly made sexualised comments to her including she was attractive and requested to engage in sexual acts.
He groped her breast over her bra and told her “the best porn was on Facebook” before showing her a five second clip and later touching her buttocks.
The court heard during the offending he left the room, returned and even stayed in the room up to an hour.
Judge Suzanne Sheridan said it was “predatory” that Irvine had returned to the home when he knew the victim’s father had gone to bed.
Irvine, a father of two with no history of sexual offending against children, pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent treatment of a child.
“My client is extremely ashamed and remorseful of his actions that night,” Mr McLennan said, adding Irvine attributed the offending to his “gross intoxication” at the time.
Irvine was jailed for eight months to be suspended after serving two months for 18 months. Convictions were recorded and he will be a registered child sex offender for five years.
FULL STORY HERE
‘All right then you are not my favourite’
An Isaac region father preyed on his teen daughters including forcing the eldest to perform vile sex abuse acts on him and whispered “do you love me?” as he molested her.
The revolting conduct occurred between 2019 and 2021.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sexually abused his two biological daughters multiple times when they were aged between 12 years and 15 years.
Mackay District Court heard it only stopped when he was arrested after his former partner, and the girls’ mother, walked in on him in his eldest daughter’s room with his pants around his ankles and his hand under the covers near her genitals.
The court heard he made disturbing and emotionally manipulative comments when the young teen tried to make him stop including “all right then you are not my favourite and I don’t love you, you don’t love me”.
He also offered her money or the return of her phone, which had been confiscated.
“They deserved your love, protection and care,” Judge John Allen said.
“Instead you offended against them in a particularly depraved way, valuing your own sexual gratification over their wellbeing.”
The man, now in his early 50s, pleaded guilty to multiple offences including maintaining a sexual relationship with a child, three counts of rape, indecent treatment of a child and retaliation against a witness.
“(He) was lonely and depressed and began drinking heavily through that offending period,” Defence barrister Scott McLennan said.
He was jailed for seven years, but could apply for parole from October 9, 2023 because he had already spent 775 days in presentence custody.
Convictions were recorded and he will be a registered child sex offender.
FULL STORY HERE
Viliami Teukava Fakavamo Paki
A former Mackay Cutters player will spend two years behind bars after he raped a child over two months and may face being deported for failing the “good character” test to stay in the country.
Viliami Teukava Fakavamo Paki, who was born in New Zealand but grew up in Emerald, was signed to the QRL team in 2018.
But his promising football career was cut short in 2019 after he suffered injuries including to his hamstring, Mackay District Court heard.
Through his involvement with the club he was able to secure work as an unqualified teacher’s aide at a Mackay school and this was how he met his young victim.
The offending occurred over two months in 2020 in the Mackay region.
“He intruded into the normal upbringing of a (young) girl,” Judge Michael Byrne said, adding he had “gained the impression” the offending was not predatory.
The court heard Paki stopped of his own volition “as soon as he had some other woman showing interest in him”.
Paki, 24, had denied the digital rape and indecent treatment of a child charges, but a jury returned guilty verdicts on four counts of rape.
He was acquitted of the indecent treatment of a child count.
The court heard there was no evidence of threats, or any force beyond what was necessary in committing the offence.
Defence barrister Scott Moon said his client was a young man at the time and there was no drugs or alcohol involved.
Judge Byrne accepted there was nothing to suggest Paki would commit a similar offence in the future and agreed with Mr Moon’s push to release him on a suspended jail term.
Pake was given four years jail to be suspended after serving two years. Convictions were recorded.
FULL STORY HERE
George Normal Maskovich
A rapist tried to offer his victim $4000 compensation for sexually assaulting her after she fell asleep drunk in her bed.
The woman who knew the man when the pair worked at a Middlemount mine, albeit in different roles.
In early 2022 they had been out drinking and had gone back to her place to crash, she had gone to sleep in her bed alone.
At some point he had gone into her room.
Mackay District Court heard the woman woke to find George Normal Maskovich, then 36, on top of her, digitally raping her.
“You violated a woman … who was sleeping in her own bed,” Judge Suzanne Sheridan said.
The court heard Maskovich had offered to pay the victim $4000 compensation and “she wasn’t supportive of it”.
Barrister Stephen Zillman said Maskovich, who was currently employed as a supervisor at a Northern Territory mine, had made the compensation offer before he had been aware of any victim impact statement.
Maskovich pleaded guilty to one count of rape, which Mr Zillman said was a very early plea.
He was jailed for two years to be suspended after serving three months. The remainder will hang over his head for two years.
A conviction was recorded.
FULL STORY HERE
Kevin James Patterson
A North Mackay man has been told the children involved in the horrific abuse images and videos found in his possession “suffered terribly”.
Possessing child exploitation material was “not a victimless offence,” Judge John Allen declared.
“The offence has actually harmed real children.”
Mackay District Court heard it was the man’s wife who initially discovered the images of children being sexually abused.
The couple were separated but living together and she uncovered the terrible content on a USB belonging to her husband.
It prompted her to call police who searched the home that same day on October 12, 2022.
In total officers seized 20 digital devices owned by then 51-year-old Kevin James Patterson, four of which contained child exploitation material.
“Most concerningly are the ages of the children involved in that conduct … being as young as two years of age being involved in penetrative acts (by adults),” Crown prosecutor Monique Sheppard said.
Patterson pleaded guilty to possessing child exploitation material.
Barrister Scott McLennan told the court as a result of the offending Patterson was asked to leave the family home and ultimately became homeless.
The court heard he was also admitted to the mental health unit, and later went to his GP and sought treatment for his depression.
Patterson was jailed for 15 months suspended after serving three months including the 55 days already spent in custody which was declared as time already served.
A conviction was recorded.
FULL STORY HERE
Bradley Hunter Simpson
A former teacher used his power and influence to sexually abuse 15 teenagers over nearly two decades, a Mackay court has heard.
Now living in a quiet suburb west of Rockhampton and wheelchair bound, Bradley Hunter Simpson’s “heinous” and “predatory” offending was revealed in Mackay District Court.
Crown prosecutor Monique Sheppard said Simpson was a “well respected” teacher in Mackay when he used his “position of trust” as well as cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana to facilitate his offending.
Judge John Allen said he would not read aloud the “sordid” details of what Simpson did to one of his victims in Mackay between late 1999 until March 2001, but it was “extremely serious and heinous” and involved sodomy and oral sex between Simpson, his victim and other children.
The court heard the child had feared for his health and safety and only came forward as an adult after he made a submission to the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse and was then encouraged to make a police statement.
“(The victim) describes himself as a broken man whose life was stolen,” Judge Allen said.
Defence barrister Paul Rutledge said the 66-year-old was impotent and posed no threat to society having regularly reported to police since January 2021 as a registered child sex offender.
Simpson, who pleaded guilty to maintaining a sexual relationship with a child, two counts of sodomy, and five counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16, was given a head sentence of five years jail.
It will be suspended after serving 12 months with an operational period of five years.
FULL STORY HERE
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