Exposed: Queensland’s convicted child sex offenders
A major spike in Queensland’s sex crimes has been recorded as trauma hotlines are inundated with children and families affected by child sexual assault. It comes as some of the state’s worst child sex offenders’ identities and convictions are revealed. Full list.
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More than 8000 sexual offences were reported in Queensland last year with one region reporting almost 1000 alone.
Sexual offences include rape, child sex offences, sexual assault, indecent exposure and other offences.
According to 2021 Queensland Crime Statistics, the South Brisbane police district had the highest number of sexual offences reported with 945.
This was up significantly from 683 reported in the district the year prior.
The highest increase from 2020 to 2021 was in North Brisbane, with 294 more reports from the year prior, while Toowoomba and South West saw a decrease in reports.
There were 608 reports of sexual offences for January 2022.
Across 2021 Queensland has 8847 reports of sexual offences, up from 7146 the year prior.
There have been a number of child sex offences committed in the state in the last year.
Lockyer Valley man Levi Wilshire was sentenced to eight years’ jail last October after he raped a 12-year-old girl three times in two days while also indecently treating her.
The court heard the girl told him to stop and tried to push him off her.
He pleaded guilty at the Ipswich District Court to three counts of rape and one count of indecent treatment of a child.
Dylan Buckingham, a mechanic of Morayfield north of Brisbane, was found guilty at Brisbane District Court by a jury of three counts of rape, maintaining an unlawful relationship with a child and four counts of indecent treatment of a child in March.
Buckingham, who was 22 at the time of the offence, repeatedly abused an 11-year-old girl, touching her inappropriately and on one occasion took her into his bedroom and raped her.
He was sentenced to six-and-a-half years’ jail.
Queensland has had some of the most horrific paedophiles living in the state at different stages.
Convicted paedophile Douglas Jackway spent 25 years behind bars for the serious sexual assault of two children, a boy and a girl in the 1990s.
He was released from Brisbane Correctional Centre in 2020 and moved to the Wacol precinct where sex offenders are housed.
Long time child sex offender Dennis Ferguson also lived in various locations in Queensland after he was released from jail for kidnapping three children and was found by police naked with a six-year-old girl who was on a bed with no clothes on.
Ferguson died in 2012.
Australia’s leading child protection charity Bravehearts had 3,816 trauma-informed specialist counselling sessions delivered to children and families affected by child sexual assault, according to their 2020/21 Annual Report.
Bravehearts had 16 submissions made by their research team to Reviews and Inquiries.
They had 62 child safety notifications lodged by their information and support line.
DOUGLAS BRIAN JACKWAY
Convicted paedophile Douglas Jackway spent 25 years behind bars for the serious sexual assault of two children, a boy and a girl in the 1990s.
He was sentenced to eight years’ jail in 1995 for abducting a boy, dragging him from his bike, driving him to an area of mangroves and raping him in Gladstone.
In 2003 he was released from jail and sent back in 2005 for raping a girl aged between nine and 10 in 1991.
The Supreme Court ruled in December 2020 that Jackway was ready to be released due to the help of rehabilitation programs and treatment.
He was released from Brisbane Correctional Centre and moved to the Wacol precinct where sex offenders are housed.
A decision handed down by the Supreme Court said he was being released from prison on a strict 15-year supervision order that could be relaxed over time.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAVIDSON
The Fraser Coast masseur was found guilty of raping, sexually assaulting and indecently treating massage clients over a 12-year period was jailed for four years in 2021.
Davidson was found guilty of seven counts of rape, 30 sexual assault offences and three counts of indecently treating a child, 15, between 2003 and 2015.
Two of the victims were young people, one girl who was digitally raped and indecently treated by Davidson.
He was sentenced to four years’ jail for the seven rape offences and concurrent sentences of three years’ jail for the sexual assaults and 18 months for the indecent treatment of a child offences.
The four-year jail term was added onto the five and a half year sentence he has been serving since 2018 for similar offences.
DENNIS FERGUSON
The long time child sex offender was serving time in Long Bay jail in the 1980s when he had planned to kidnap three children of a fellow inmate.
After his release, Ferguson and his male lover went to stay with the children’s uncle in Sydney where the pair abducted the inmate’s daughter, aged six, and sons aged seven and eight.
The pair flew to Brisbane with the children.
Police found them the following night at a motel in Ascot where Ferguson was found naked alongside the little girl, who was on a bed with no clothes on.
Ferguson was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
He was released in 2004 and forced to repeatedly move after neighbours and the media identified his new location.
In 2012 he was found dead in a Sydney unit.
GREGORY DAVID KYNUNA
Gregory Kynuna was convicted of his first sexual assault offences in 1987 after he entered a Cairns hostel where young girls were staying for a school excursion.
Court documents show he was seen to touch a number of 10-year-old girls around their genitalia through the sheets.
He was sentenced to an effective sentence of three years and 18 months imprisonment.
In 2004, Kynuna was sentenced to six years imprisonment for rape after he approached a six-year-old boy in the street near his home.
He ripped a hole in the child’s bathing suit and sexually assaulted the boy.
MARK NEWTON & PETER TRUONG
American-born Mark Newton was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2012 after he and his long-term boyfriend from Cairns Peter Truong sexually abused their”adopted” son.
The pair had paid a Russian woman $8,000 to be their surrogate in 2005.
Newton pleaded guilty to conspiracy to sexually exploit a minor and conspiracy to possess child pornography before southern District of Indiana US District Court Judge Sarah Barker in 2013. Truong was sentenced to 30 years behind bars in 2013 after he entered guilty pleas to one count of conspiracy to sexually exploit a child and conspiracy to possess child pornography.
Across six years the couple had travelled to the US, New Zealand, France and Germany and offered the boy for sex with at least eight different men.
The offending was filmed on cameras and uploaded to an international syndicate.
When the couple were visiting family in the US, Queensland Police searched their home in Cairns and found enough evidence to alert their American counterparts who took the boy into custody.
DYLAN BARRY PHILLIP BUCKINGHAM
Morayfield Mechanic Dylan Buckingham was found guilty at Brisbane District Court by a jury of three counts of rape, maintaining an unlawful relationship with a child and four counts of indecent treatment of a child in March.
Buckingham, who was 22 at the age of the offence, repeatedly abused an 11-year-old girl, touching her inappropriately and on one occasion took her into his bedroom and raped her.
He was sentenced to six-and-a-half years’ jail.
DANRICK DALE WILLIAM POSSUM
In July 2016, Danrick Possum was convicted of a number of offences, including deprivation of liberty and rape after he approached an eight-year-old girl known to him in 2015.
He grabbed the girl at night and took her into a room and locked the door.
As the child struggled to break free and scream for help, he placed his hands over her mouth to stop her before exposing himself to the girl.
Adults at the house came to help and he unlocked the door and freed the girl.
The following afternoon, Possum was interviewed by police and admitted he had consumed a large quantity of alcohol and would have gone further if he hadn’t been disturbed by others.
LEVI JAMES WILSHIRE
Lockyer Valley man Levi Wilshire was sentenced to eight years’ jail last October after he raped a 12-year-old girl three times in two days while also indecently treating her.
The court heard the girl told him to stop and tried to push him off her.
He pleaded guilty at the Ipswich District Court to three counts of rape and one count of indecent treatment of a child.
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