Qld’s jailed rapists revealed amid rise in sexual offence charges | List
One Queensland region has recorded a staggering 649 sexual offence charges this year alone, as police claim there’s a reason why the state has experienced a 20-year record spike in sex-related charges. It comes as vile rapists’ crimes and identities are revealed. TRIGGER WARNING
Police & Courts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Police & Courts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Police have laid more than 7000 charges against alleged sex offenders so far – and this year’s figure has already surpassed the entire number of sexual offences for 2020.
Queensland Police figures show that 7162 sexual offences have allegedly committed across the state between January and October with the South Brisbane police district confronted with the most sex crimes.
It comes as the Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll launched a world first campaign with Tinder to combat rising sexual assault through online dating platforms.
Rape offences linked to online dating apps have risen from three offences in 2008 to 49 in 2019.
“We’ve seen from our data that sexual assaults linked to online dating apps have become more frequent as they increasing steadily over time reflecting the evolution of how we use the technology,” Commissioner Carroll said.
Police have told the Courier Mail that officers had seen a rapid increase in victims of sexual assault turning to an online reporting method that allows them to tell police the details of the crime without it necessarily going to court.
The number of victims using the Alternative Reporting Option (ARO) – now a completely online process – has gone from just 48 during the 2015/16 financial year to 250 for the 2019/20 financial year.
Former Child Abuse and Sexual Crime Group Detective Acting Superintendent Stephen Blanchfield said that officers see a spike in reports after high profile movements like #metoo and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
“I think it’s a good thing that there’s some really robust discussions happening in the community about sexual violence generally, the impacts that it has on people’s lives and the reasons why people aren’t necessarily reporting,” he said.
“Any time in the public domain sexual violence is spoken about, and people are encouraged to report, we get more reports.
“We may not see that immediately but in time we’ll see there may be an increase.”
SEXUAL OFFENCES IN QLD
Queensland total – 7163
North Brisbane – 644
South Brisbane – 759
Capricornia – 443
Mackay – 243
Far North – 623
Moreton – 646
Sunshine Coast – 440
Wide Bay Burnett – 399
Mount Isa – 115
Townsville – 447
Gold Coast – 649
Logan – 621
Darling Downs – 495
Ipswich – 539
South West – 91
*Figures are from the Queensland Police and are for sexual offences from January to October this year for each police district.
RAPISTS SENTENCED IN 2021
TRAVIS ALEXANDER MANWARRING
Travis Alexander Manwarring, 32, raped and viciously assaulted a Polish nanny while she was out for an evening walk five years ago, leaving her battered and bruised.
The young woman, who had never travelled outside her village in Poland before coming to Australia, was raped and beaten by Manwarring so badly she required facial surgery.
The woman returned to Poland after the attack and died in a car crash in February 2017, three months after the rape.
Manwarring was found guilty of rape after a trial and he pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm.
He was sentenced to 12-and-a-half years’ jail after Brisbane District Court Judge Nicole Kefford described the attack as “an appalling act of personal violence, a violation of an innocent woman in a public place, subjecting her to humiliating and degrading conduct”.
He will have to serve 80 per cent of the sentence behind bars.
LUKE JAMES COLLESS
A man who became known as the Brisbane bike path rapist had two years added to his 19-year sentence this year, after admitting to a previously unsolved rape on the Sunshine Coast.
Luke James Colless was arrested in 2008 and confessed to assaulting 11 women over 27 months, including five rapes from 2006 to 2008.
During sentencing in Maroochydore District Court in September, it was revealed a Sunshine Coast woman had spotted her attacker on a true crime TV show in 2018, prompting her to go to police.
Colless had originally denied any knowledge of the Coolum Beach attack but this year pleaded guilty to one count of rape.
TROY JAMES O’MEARA
A double murderer, who raped and murdered Gold Coast woman Linda Reed 37 years ago, has been jailed for 20 years, but he will be eligible for parole in July, 2022.
Troy James O’Meara, who is already serving a life sentence for the 1985 murder of another woman, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Brisbane on March 8 to the rape and murder of Ms Reed on December 13, 1983, when he was 17.
The judge sentenced O’Meara to 20 years for Ms Reed’s murder and 10 years for rape, ordering that he be eligible for parole on July 11, 2022.
SAKARIA TAUFAO
Uber driver Sakaria Taufao lured a teenager into his car before raping her and keeping her driver’s licence “as a trophy”.
A Brisbane District Court jury found Sakaria Taufao, 50, deliberately turned off his ride-share app before raping the 18-year-old in the back seat of his BMW sedan off a dirt road in Ipswich in 2015.
Judge Michael Burnett sentenced Taufao to seven years’ jail with no parole date for the “cold and calculated” attack.
JOEY MYER
A former political candidate was jailed for more than eight years after being found guilty of raping and indecently treating a 14-year-old girl, who now describes herself as broken.
Joey Myer, who ran for the seat of Fisher in the 2013 federal election, was found guilty in the Maroochydore District Court in March of 11 counts of indecently treating a child under 16 and one count of rape.
The Crown Prosecutor described the offending as predatory, persistent, and put the teen in a position where she felt powerless and unable to tell anyone.
Myer was sentenced to eight years and six months jail.
NATHAN JOHN STOLBERG
Caboolture man Nathan John Stolberg, 43, pleaded guilty in Brisbane District Court on Thursday to three counts of raping a vulnerable woman more than 15 years his junior.
The court was told the father of six had been drinking heavily the day he went to the woman’s South Brisbane unit and told her “We both know why I’m here”.
He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, which will be suspended after he has served 16 months, on March 10 next year.
LEVI JAMES WILSHIRE
Gatton man Levi James Wilshire, 29, raped a 12-year-old girl three times as she bravely fought 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.
Wilshire was sentenced to eight years’ jail, with parole-eligibility set at June 18, 2023.
GAVIN MARK WARREN LOVEJOY
Gavin Mark Warren Lovejoy was jailed after he broke into a Bundaberg woman’s house, crawled into her bed and began performing unsolicited oral sex on her.
The woman woke up screaming after finding Lovejoy discovering he had pulled her pants down, fondled and digitally penetrated her while she slept.
Lovejoy pleaded guilty to three charges – burglary, rape and sexual assault with circumstances of aggravation.
He received a head sentence of three years in jail which was to be suspended after 12 months.
BENJAMIN WILLIAM BAKER
Benjamin William Baker, a former bank employee, was jailed for his “deplorable actions” at his Redlands Coast home on Australia Day in 2019.
Baker and his now ex-wife had invited people to their Thornlands home for drinking games.
The court heard later that night he groped and digitally raped a woman, who had prearranged to stay at the couple’s house, only stopping when his wife burst into the room.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault and digital rape and was sentenced to two years’ jail for the rape, to be suspended after he had served three months behind bars.
ALBERT CHARLES MARC CRONIN
Gympie man Albert Charles Marc Cronin will remain in jail until 2025 for raping and sexually abusing three young girls over a two-year period.
The 42-year-old from Monkland pleaded guilty to 11 charges stemming from the abuse, including three counts of rape.
He was sentenced to nine years jail and will be eligible for parole on May 8, 2025.
JASEY KEEPA HARRISON
A young Fraser Coast man raped a teen twice on her eighteenth birthday, with the court hearing his victim woke mid-rape to the “sound of moaning”.
Point Vernon man Jasey Keepa Harrison, 20, a New Zealand citizen who was attended high school at Urangan, pleaded guilty in Brisbane District Court to two counts of rape.
Harrison was jailed for five years, to be suspended after serving 18 months behind bars.
REMA HENRY JOHN POOLEY
Gympie man Rema Henry John Pooley bashed a woman repeatedly, raped her then tried to pressure her from behind bars to drop the complaint.
The 31-year-old pleaded guilty to dozens of offences in Brisbane District Court including rape, multiple counts of common assault and assault occasioning bodily harm, and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Pooley was sentenced to a head sentence of seven years’ jail for the rape which the judge labelled “violent and degrading”.
LANCE ERNEST GEORGE AITKEN
Warwick man Lance Ernest George Aitken was sentenced to seven years’ jail for raping a 13-year-old girl.
The offending came to light when Aitken’s victim told her mother she was no longer a virgin and confessed she’d been raped.
He was found guilty of three counts of rape and two counts of indecent treatment of a child and will be eligible for parole after serving half his sentence behind bars.
DYLAN BARRY PHILLIP BUCKINGHAM
Morayfield mechanic Dylan Barry Phillip Buckingham was sentenced to six and a half years’ jail for his “vile and despicable” offending against an 11-year-old girl.
The 27-year-old was found guilty by a Brisbane District Court jury of three counts of rape, maintaining an unlawful relationship with a child and four counts of indecent treatment of a child.
Over six months Buckingham, who was then aged 22, repeatedly abused the girl by touching her inappropriately and on one occasion took her into his bedroom and raped her.
He will be eligible for parole in March 2024.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAVIDSON
Masseur Charles William Davidson was found guilty of raping, sexually assaulting and indecently treating massage clients over 12 years.
A jury found Davidson, 71, guilty of seven counts of rape, 30 sexual assault offences and three counts of indecently treating a child, 15, between 2003 and 2015.
He was jailed for four years and his sentence was added to the five and a half-year sentence he received for similar sexual offending against massage clients in 2018.
ANAU, BANU, INGUI AND PETER
Four cousins were jailed over the brutal gang rape of a drunken 16-year-old girl beside a Holloways Beach sugar cane field in 2017.
Aaron Anau, Jeffery Tibau Banu, Tom Banu Ingui and Francis Peter each pleaded not guilty to four counts of rape in relation to the December 28, 2017 crime.
In September, each man was found guilty by jury of three counts of rape and were found to be not guilty on a fourth count as the victim was unable to identify her alleged rapist.
Ingui – who had a lengthy and relevant criminal history – was sentenced to 21 and a half years’ jail.
Anau was sentenced to 15 years, Banu was sentenced to six years and Peter was sentenced to nine years’ jail for their roles in the sexual assault.
CLIFFORD ZANE MCLEAN
Clifford Zane McLean raped a young British backpacker who believed the white car she was getting into in the Bundaberg CBD was a taxi that would get her home safely after a night out.
Chilling details of how McLean, 39, drove the 22-year-old to a “dark, lonely” park and violently raped her despite repeated pleas for him to stop were read out in Bundaberg District Court in October.
McLean, 39, was sentenced to 10 years’ jail after being found guilty by a jury of the rape.
Two teens charged after violent home robbery in Brisbane
Two teenage boys, one aged 13, have been charged after allegedly storming a home in Brisbane’s south armed with machetes. A 50-year-old woman was injured.
Would you convict a homeowner who used lethal force to defend their home?
How would you, as a juror, judge a frightened parent who killed a 13-year-old who had entered their home illegally in the dead of night? New Sunday Mail columnist Madonna King asks. VOTE NOW