Douglas Brian Jackway: Terrifying denials of notorious Qld child rapist

Three boys pedalled their bikes along the track beside the river when a white car approached. The driver was one of Queensland’s most evil pedophiles, Douglas Brian Jackway. What he did next would shock an entire state.

• Faces of evil: Qld’s worst pedos

The three little boys pedalled their bikes along the track beside the river, as a white car shadowed them from the road adjacent.

They noticed it – the slow moving vehicle with a man at the wheel – and turned their bikes to pedal the other way.

But the man turned too and continued his slow pursuit.

Then the man stopped and got out of his car. He called out to the boys, asking for directions to Gladstone.

They obliged, pointing to the road and telling him to turn left at the intersection. That will take you to Gladstone, they said.

Suddenly, the man came towards them. He punched one of the boys in the face and grabbed another, yanked him by the arm and dragged him to the car.

The little boy was only nine when Douglas Brian Jackway, once considered a suspect in the disappearance and murder of Daniel Morcombe, drove him away to rape him.

He was raping him still when the little boy’s father, accompanied by a police officer, found them among the mangroves.

Minutes later, as Jackway was led away in cuffs, he leaned towards the boy and his parents to scream abuse, telling them he’d come back and kill the child he’d just attacked.

Douglas Jackway is one of Queensland’s most notorious pedophiles.

Now in his late 40s, Jackway has spent nearly all of his adult life behind bars.

Until recently, he was among 56 criminals living in the Wacol precinct – a small collection of houses adjacent the Wacol Correctional Centre where people subject to Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act orders live.

They are people who have served their time in prison but pose a risk to the community and so must be heavily monitored.

The orders vary, but those subject to them would likely have restrictions on internet usage, alcohol intake or where they can go in the community. Residents of the Wacol precinct cannot have visitors.

Douglas Brian Jackway.

The precinct has been the subject of scrutiny in recent weeks after multiple breaches of the “no visitors” rule.

Jackway, often described as one of Queensland’s most notorious prisoners, has allegedly breached it twice.

The Sunday Mail revealed this week that Jackway and another sex offender were returned to jail after being caught with a woman in the precinct.

Late last year, another sex offender allegedly abused a teenage girl there.

And Jackway, just one month after his 2020 arrival at the precinct, was caught with a woman who he helped to inject with drugs.

He was sentenced to eight years in prison for the 1995 abduction and rape of the young boy and was then charged with the historical rape of a young girl.

For that, Jackway was sentenced to seven years in jail.

But for a short time, between having served his sentence for the rape of a boy and his arrest for the rape of a girl, Jackway was free.

On November 7, 2003, Jackway was released from Wolston Correctional Centre.

On December 7, 13-year-old Sunshine Coast schoolboy Daniel Morcombe disappeared while waiting for a bus on the Sunshine Coast.

Jackway was considered a suspect because of his criminal history and his proximity to the Sunshine Coast at the time. He’d also been known to drive a blue car. Various witnesses claimed to have seen a child being forced into a blue car following Daniel’s abduction. The blue car would turn out to be a red herring but for a time, it would cause police to put much focus on Jackway.

A still from Queensland Police surveillance of the car belonging to Douglas Jackway.

It would be eight years before police arrested Daniel’s killer – another paedophile named Brett Cowan with a similar history of abducting children – but Jackway continued to be linked to the case.

In 2014, Jackway was called as a witness when Cowan’s defence team tried to pin the crime on him.

He appeared on video link as defence barrister Angus Edwards took him in detail through the attack on the young boy.

“You never, ever said you did that,” Mr Edwards put to him.

“You always said no, I wasn’t responsible. You said, it wasn’t me, even when you were caught with him.”

Jackway responded: “Yeah, that’s right. I thought I didn’t cause I was all f … ing drugged out. I didn’t believe I did do it because of the drugs.”

Mr Edwards suggested Jackway was beyond rehabilitation. He’d refused to participate in the sex offenders program. He’d assaulted another prisoner. Smashed televisions.

In jail, the trial heard, he’d bragged of wanting to abduct a child, that he’d rape the child and bury them where they could not be found.

Eventually, he decided he’d had enough of participating in another man’s murder trial.

“How about you go and f … yourself you f … ing f … wit?” he told the barrister.

Jackway is currently in the Brisbane Correctional Centre facing a charge of contravention of a relevant order.