Pakistani student should be stripped of blue card

A Pakistani medical student convicted of sexually molesting a boy should be stripped of his blue card immediately, the Opposition said today.

A Pakistani medical student convicted of sexually molesting a boy should be stripped of his blue card immediately, the Opposition said today.

Jann Stuckey, Shadow Minister for Child Safety, said that yesterday's decision by the courts not to record a criminal conviction against Pakistani med student Shakee Mirza for inappropriate dealings with a minor, brings sharply into question the strength of blue card checks in Queensland.

The Brisbane District Court was told that Shakee Mirza, 26, offered to give an 11-year-old boy a penis massage while the pair were lying on a bed watching Mel Brooks' cult-comedy movie, Spaceballs.

Mirza had been visiting the boy at his mother's Brisbane home at the time of the offence, which defence lawyer Brad Farr described as "two seconds of stupidity".

Mirza was charged in February last year with one count of attempted indecent treatment of a child under 12, to which he pleaded guilty.

The court was told Mirza had met the boy when he volunteered to become a mentor for his younger brother through a program called Aunties and Uncles.

The program, which was run by the Lions Club, was designed to give support to disadvantaged youths.

Ms Stuckey said today: "Blue cards are not the panacea to prevent all child abuse but they are issued to adults who are considered to have good enough character to be trusted to be with children in an unsupervised environment.

"Disadvantaged children are often among the most vulnerable and therefore thorough checks must be made before any adult is permitted to spend time alone with children.

"Shakee Mirza will be allowed to finish his medical degree at which time he does not require a blue card to be alone in the company of children. This was a serious incident of abuse and steps need to be taken and procedures tightened to avoid future incidents

"To label these actions as merely '"two seconds of stupidity" is typical of the way some people in our society play down the seriousness of child abuse.

"Mirza's behaviour mirrors the typical actions of known pedophiles, who spend a lot of time building trust with a family before abusing their victim.

"He should be automatically stripped of his blue card, not to do so makes a mockery of the whole blue card system. Additionally, it raises the issue of whether we want this sort of person practicing as a doctor." Ms Stuckey said.

Originally published as Pakistani student should be stripped of blue card