Warwick child sex offenders and their crimes revealed - full list
New and worrying trends behind Warwick’s child sex crimes have come to light as the town’s top cop reveals the best way to combat the insidious predation. See the full list of offenders here.
Police & Courts
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A shocking number of offenders are brought before the Warwick courts each year for committing vile crimes against the community’s most vulnerable, and new police data has revealed the trends behind their predatory acts.
This figure includes child sex offences along with rape, sexual assault, indecent exposure, and other crimes.
Warwick Police acting officer-in-charge Sergeant Cameron Slater said while there had been no obvious spike in the number of child sex offences, other trends had emerged.
“There is a component of that which is the online offences, so obviously over the last few years there’s been an increase in that,” he said.
Sergeant Slater said these ranged from using social media and online platforms to groom children, send young victims explicit images without authorisation, or to access and distribute child exploitation material.
He highlighted the 58 Queenslanders charged with more than 400 child sex offences at the close of the Queensland Police Service’s Operation Molto this week, saying it made clear how widespread and insidious the predation could be.
“I think the biggest thing in spotting or preventing it is keeping your lines of communication open with your children,” Sergeant Slater said.
“If they are feeling threatened or something like that, they need to be in a position where they can talk to their parents without thinking they’re going to get in trouble or something like that.
“The other thing I suppose is to try and set them up in whatever they do online as safely as possible so they’re not giving out personal information, addresses, and not talking to people they don’t know.”
Sergeant Slater urged anyone who believed their child may have been targeted to report the incident via this link so it could be investigated by police.
There have been a number of shocking child sex offenders prosecuted in the Warwick courts recently, from a father of five who raped a teenage girl to a man set to walk free only a year after pleading guilty to almost 50 child sex crimes.
See the full list below:
Serial predator busted after sending nudes to undercover cop
BRENDAN ASHLEY THOMAS
A Warwick man who pleaded guilty to almost 50 child sex crimes, including having unprotected sex with a teenage girl after claiming he was allergic to condoms, could be released from jail before the end of this year.
Brendan Ashley Thomas sent about 150 messages asking his first victim for nude photos or to video chat with him naked.
Warwick District Court heard the text messages also discussed “rooting” and “finger banging”, which Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Kelso contended was Thomas’ way of pushing his victim into doing these acts with him in public places.
The then-25-year-old also asked one of his teenage victims to urinate on him.
His vile offending was eventually brought to light when he sent nudes to an undercover cop posing as a 13-year-old girl online.
Thomas pleaded guilty to 48 child sex crimes including indecent treatment of a child under 16, carnal knowledge of a child under 16, distributing child exploitation material, and grooming.
The Warwick man was sentenced to five years’ jail with eligibility for release under a suspended sentence after 12 months. He was also be subject to a three-year probation order upon his release.
Southern Downs man jailed almost 40 years after raping teenage victim
FRANK BEERENS
A Southern Downs man who was jailed for rape almost 40 years after committing sex crimes against teenage girls is set to be eligible for parole in only a few months’ time.
A then-27-year-old Frank Beerens raped his teenage victim beside a dam at a Brisbane caravan park during the Christmas school holidays in 1984.
Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Kelso told Brisbane District Court that Beerens used his body weight to hold down the young girl and later threatened her, “If you tell anyone I sh----ed you, it will be your fault”.
The court was told the Leyburn man, now aged in his 60s, was also committing sex offences against another young girl at the same time.
He was later charged and pleaded guilty to four charges of indecent treatment of a child and was given a wholly suspended sentence at Warwick District Court in December, 2019.
Beerens was sentenced to seven years’ jail for the rape, and will be eligible for parole on May 27.
Warwick father of five jailed for raping teenage victim, leaving girl with nightmares
LANCE ERNEST GEORGE AITKEN
Warwick father Lance Ernest George Aitken was sentenced to seven years behind bars after he was found guilty of raping a teenage girl while she was still a virgin.
Lance Ernest George Aitken digitally raped the girl, kissed her, and forced her to watch him masturbate before he raped her with his penis without using protection, with the offences occurring over three encounters between September and December in 2015.
Brisbane District Court heard the father of five’s offending was brought to light when his victim confessed to her mother that she had been raped and was no longer a virgin.
The court was told Aitken’s victim had since suffered “sleepless nights, nightmares, and didn’t think she’d ever be the same” after the attacks.
Aitken was convicted of three counts of rape and two counts of indecent treatment of a child under the age of 16.
He will be eligible for parole after serving three and a half years in jail.
Man spends only days behind bars after sex with 14-year-old girl
JAMIE EDWARD KRATZMANN
A man who admitted to having sex with a 14-year-old girl spent only a few days behind bars after it was argued the encounter was consensual.
Jamie Edward Kratzmann was alone with the teenager in the kitchen of her home one night in December 2018, when he touched her breasts and genital area without her consent before the pair went to a caravan outside and had sex.
Crown prosecutor Zachary Kaplan read parts of the girl’s victim impact statement to Warwick District Court, saying the teenager had been “suffering in silence” since the sexual contact.
“There were no obvious reminders to the outside world of the pain I was feeling, so life went on,” Mr Kaplan read aloud.
Kratzmann was convicted of the indecent treatment of a child under 16.
The 30-year-old was sentenced to six months’ jail, wholly suspended after seven days, three of which had already been served over the course of the court proceedings.
Serial child sex offender abuses daughter for a decade
A serial predator had his wife blow him a kiss in court as he was being sentenced to jail for sexually abusing his daughter for a decade, beginning when she was only three years old.
The Southern Downs man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sexually assaulted the little girl on six occasions between September 1981 and December 1991, while he was aged between 25 and 35.
Crown prosecutor Stephen Muir said the father “emotionally blackmailed” his daughter into hiding the abuse, saying they would lose their “wrong but special relationship” if anyone found out.
The court was told the man denied the allegations in a police interview in 2015 and earlier court proceedings, before ultimately pleading guilty to the offending in Warwick District Court last year.
He pleaded guilty to indecent treatment of a child aged under 14 and indecent treatment of a lineal descendant aged under 16.
He was sentenced to an additional 20 months behind bars on top of his existing jail sentence, with eligibility for parole in October this year.
Man eligible for parole after decade of sexually abusing niece, aged 3
A Southern Downs man who sexually abused his niece for almost a decade and threatened to kill her if she told anyone was sentenced to less than two years in jail.
The then-28-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sexually assaulted the girl an undetermined number of times, starting when she was just three years old.
Warwick District Court was told the man continued to sexually exploit his victim, visiting the girl an estimated 40 times across a five-year period, and had some kind of sexual contact with her most days.
The man pleaded guilty to three counts of the indecent treatment of a child under 12 and one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child.
He was sentenced to five years’ jail with eligibility for parole in January this year.
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