Convicted rapist Joshua Skvaridlo fined in Kingaroy court for being on dating app

A man convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl and sexually groping a 12-year-old has fronted court again after it was discovered he had signed up for a dating app.

A Ballogie man convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl and sexually groping a 12-year-old has fronted court again, after it was discovered he had signed up for a dating app and failed to inform police.

Joshua Mark Skvaridlo faced Kingaroy Magistrates Court on Monday, May 10, and pleaded guilty to one charge of failing to comply with reporting obligations.

In October 2014, Skvaridlo faced Kingaroy District Court on charges of indecent treatment of children where he was sentenced to a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and 18 months probation for sexually groping a 12-year-old.

And in August 2018, Skvaridlo was sentenced to five years imprisonment, suspended for five years after serving 20 months, for the rape of a 17-year-old.

Skvaridlo was represented in court by Mark Werner, who said the failure to report had been a misunderstanding and there was nothing sinister behind the breach.

“They’re just different dating apps which are available from the same site but you obviously register them through your Facebook account or Google account,” Mr Werner said.
“So he thought he‘d already … recorded all of those accounts. There’s no new accounts or phone numbers or anything – it’s just apps that are available through existing sites.”

Josh Skvaridlo

Mr Werner told the court his client had recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia and noted there had been previous breaches of his reporting obligations.

“(He) has made a lot of efforts to try and stop offending notwithstanding that he does seem to pop up in court for these types of breaches,” he said.

“There are prior breaches. But again, it‘s more a matter of not being organised or thorough in reporting, rather than any kind of sinister intent for all of the past breaches.”

Magistrate Andrew Sinclair fined Skvaridlo $250 for the offence and warned him to be thorough in his understanding of his conditions.

“Those obligations are quite difficult to understand and onerous and you’ll have to re-read them and re-understand them because parliament has determined that you‘ve got to report everything,” Magistrate Sinclair said.

He was also committed to the district court in relation to his suspended sentence.

A conviction was recorded.