Queensland convicted rapists named and shamed as hotspots for sex assaults revealed
Thousands of sex assaults have been reported this year as police push for tough measures to curb violence. It comes as rapists’ identities are revealed. TRIGGER WARNING: Check your area.
Police & Courts
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Sex offences in Queensland have risen six per cent over the past year with Brisbane’s southside suburbs hotspots for sexual offences between January and October.
Police have laid more than 7600 charges for rape, attempted rape and other sexual assaults in that time, according to Queensland Police online statistics.
The startling figure is up from 7162 at the same time last year and includes 2862 rape and attempted rape offences along with 4784 “other” sexual offences.
The data follows tough new measures introduced to parliament in October which give police expanded powers to enter the residence of a reportable offender to inspect their digital devices in a bid to hunt down sex offenders.
Disturbingly, police said there had also been an increasing trend in child sex offenders using new web technology and the anonymity of online offending to harm children.
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Rape offences linked to online dating apps rose from three offences in 2008 to 49 in 2019.
Police Minister Mark Ryan said since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, police were discovering child sex offenders using new web technology to target children.
The planned measures came a year after the state’s police launched a world-first Tinder app campaign, sending users safety messages to combat sexual assaults through dating apps.
Queenslanders swiping on Tinder now see messages encouraging them to report sexual assaults and showing them where they can get support if they have experienced sexual violence.
The QPS campaign was viewed 1 million times by Queensland Tinder users with visits to the QPS sexual assault reporting page increasing by 53 per cent compared to the previous year.
But police said the rise in reporting did not necessarily reflect a rise in occurrences and police were still engaging with Tinder to re-run the campaign.
The startling findings were backed up by an Australian Institute of Criminology survey, published in October, which scanned 9987 dating app and website users across the country.
It found three-quarters of users were subjected to online sexual harm or victimisation and a third subjected to in-person sexual violence perpetrated by someone they met on a dating app or website.
In Queensland, over the past year, Brisbane’s southside suburbs experienced the most charges for rape and attempted rape offences, recording 751 total sexual assaults between January and October.
Police reported 329 rape and attempted rape offences from southside suburbs to the end of October with 32 from the Mt Ommaney policing district, 29 from Inala and 25 from Dutton Park police area.
The Gold Coast recorded 267 offences for attempted rape and rape while Brisbane North came in a close third, reporting 257 cases, mainly from the Ferny Grove area where there were 60 reported cases.
Moreton Bay Region was confronted with 246 charges for attempted rape and rape, with Redcliffe accounting for 43, while Ipswich reported 212 and Logan 209.
Cairns accounted for the most number of charges for the two types of rape offences recording 78 offences while Mackay recorded 24 and the Rockhampton region 54.
There was an alarming 83 charges for rape and attempted rape offences at Maroochydore over the period with Bundaberg also recording 45 cases.
Mt Isa policing district had the lowest number of reported charges for rape and attempted rape offences with 23 cases on record.
Here is our list of rape cases which made headlines over the past year.
TOWNSVILLE: TYRESE LEONARD GEORGE WALLACE
Far North Queensland man Tyrese Leonard George Wallace, who pleaded guilty in a Townsville court in March to two counts of rape, attempted rape, grievous bodily harm and assault occasioning bodily harm, was sentenced to 13.5 years behind bars in Cairns District Court in June.
Wallace, who was 21 at the time, appeared before Judge Dean Morzone, who referred to his offences as, “cruel, sadistic and callous”.
In March, a Townsville court heard a 66-year-old woman was walking in a park in Cranbrook when she was attacked and dragged into the bushes and raped in September 2020.
The court heard the brutal, random attack left the victim naked with severe injuries including a broken jaw and a fractured eye socket.
Wallace had been charged with attacking a 51-year-old sex worker at a Rosslea home only hours before the rape.
Judge Morzone said it was his responsibility to protect the community and convicted Wallace on all counts and sentenced to 12 years’ jail for the counts of grievous bodily harm, rape, and attempted rape.
Wallace also received a sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment on the charge of assault occasioning bodily harm, to be served consecutively.
The 140 days Wallace had spent in custody were included in the time served.
BUNDABERG: GEOFFREY CHARLES ROGERS
Geoffrey Charles Rogers, who owns two successful companies, was sentenced in Maroochydore in January for “violent” sex crimes against a girl who was under 16 at the time.
Rogers, who was 59 at the time, had previously pleaded guilty in Gympie District Court to 12 charges in total.
He was sentenced in Maroochydore District Court to two counts of rape, two counts of common assault and three counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16.
Crown prosecutor Catherine Birkett said in 1998, when Rogers was 36, he sexually assaulted the victim who was 15 at the time.
He touched her breasts, digitally raped her and called her a “sl-t”.
A few days later, he took the victim on a tour of his farm before raping her, slapping her across the face and biting her breasts.
In a third incident, Rogers took the girl to an “isolated location” where he raped and sodomised her until she vomited.
Rogers, who owns AustralianSeafood.com and Wizard Drilling, was married for 39 years and had four children.
Judge Glen Cash described the offending as “violent” and “very serious to say the least”.
He sentenced Rogers to nine years’ prison with parole eligibility after four-and-a-half years.
HERVEY BAY: RICHARD GIARDINA
A heinous killer, already in prison for murdering and burning his wife, learned his fate in September 2022, after DNA revealed him as a smirking rapist who attacked a woman in her bed in the 1980s.
Richard Giardina is serving a life sentence for murdering his estranged wife, Lisa Maree Keem, in 2008.
Giardina was convicted in Queensland in 2011, three years after he broke into Ms Keem’s Hervey Bay home and strangled her.
The killer drove his wife’s body to a state forest near Kempsey, in northern NSW, doused her in petrol and burned her remains. Giardina was apprehended after trying to flee to Sicily.
DNA samples were taken from Giardina, after his arrest in 2008, and passed on to NSW Police.
One year later, forensic pathologists told NSW Police that the DNA had been linked to a 1988 rape in Sydney.
Giardina was finally charged in 2020 and pleaded not guilty before a jury in June this year.
Prosecutors told the jury that, days before Christmas 1988, a stranger had broken into a 20-year-old woman’s darkened bedroom while she slept in her ground floor apartment.
The jury found Giardina guilty of breaking and entering and sexual intercourse without consent in July.
In September, NSW District Court Judge Phillip Mahony sentenced Giardina to four years in prison, backdated to September 2021.
Giardina will become eligible for parole over the murder of his wife in mid-2023.
He will become eligible for parole for his rape of JS in March 2024.
IPSWICH: JAMES PETER WALKER
James Peter Walker pleaded guilty to one count each of rape, assault occasioning bodily harm and deprivation of liberty when he appeared in Ipswich Magistrates Court via video link in June.
The court heard that in January 2019, Walker and a woman were using meth in Walker’s home, which the court heard was a bus, when Walker misplaced his phone.
The woman said she did not know where it was and invited him to search her.
Walker took off her shirt, pulled at her bra until it broke and removed her skirt and underwear.
He then slapped the woman on her back and she fell onto the couch.
The court heard Walker raped her, but without penetration, while she told him to stop.
The court also heard Walker had been convicted of assault occasioning bodily harm, wilful damage, dangerous operation of a vehicle and a number of drug offences but had not used drugs since being released on bail in May, 2019.
Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren sentenced Walker to 12 months’ prison for the assault occasioning bodily harm, two years for the sexual assault and six months for the deprivation of liberty charge.
The sentences were concurrent and suspended after four months, for three years.
TIM PETER CHAPMAN
Tim Peter Chapman was convicted and sentenced to a two-and-a-half-year jail term after pleading guilty to raping a woman he picked up on the way to a train station.
He was sentenced in Ipswich District Court in April 2021 to a jail term suspended for three years after serving 50 days, which he had already served between April 9 and May 28 2019.
The father of six, who was 39 at the time, offered a woman a lift at night when he began committing a sexual act on the woman despite her verbal and physical protest.
SAKARIA TAUFO
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.
GATTON: 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.
CAIRNS: ALAN GEORGE VICO
Alan George Vico was found guilty of rape after a jury in the Cairns District Court deliberated for eight hours in September.
Crown prosecutor Claudia Georgouras argued a 20-year-old student was so grossly intoxicated she did not have the cognitive capacity to consent to sex with the former Ports North executive – and the Cairns District Court jury agreed.
The court heard Vico picked up the woman as she walked along a road, took her to a Cairns motel and raped her in September 2018.
Vico, 56, told Judge Michael Rackemann, the woman was coherent, not overly intoxicated, and readily agreed to sex.
But the jury found him guilty.
It was the second time Vico, who lost his $230,000 a year job, has been found guilty.
The Clifton Beach man pleaded not guilty to rape in a judge-only trial in June 2020, with Judge Julie Dick reserving her decision for more than two months before finding him guilty in late August 2020.
In April 2021, Vico’s appeal against his conviction and five-and-a-half-year sentence was successful.
He was sentenced to five years behind bars in September.
GOLD COAST: YASPATHU PETER NAMOK
Molendinar teenager Yaspathu Peter Namok raped a sleeping woman because he thought she wanted sex, a court was told in July.
The 19-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of rape and one count of sexual assault in the Southport District Court.
In March 2021, Namok removed the woman’s pyjamas and underwear and raped her while she was sleeping on a sofa bed in a lounge room, the court was told. He was 18.
She suffered bruising and abrasions from the assault and rape.
The woman confronted Namok after being awakened from a deep sleep. He responded by saying “I thought you wanted to have sex”, the court was told.
“What part of me sleeping gave you the impression I wanted sex?” she replied.
The court was told Namok was “extremely intoxicated” that night, had no recollection of the rape, was remorseful and had limited his drinking to the occasional beer after work.
Judge Rowan Jackson noted Namok had no criminal history at the time of the offence.
He sentenced Namok to five-and-a-half years’ jail with a parole eligibility date of March 18, 2024.
YERONGA, BRISBANE: ROBERT LOUIS GIBSON
Robert Louis Gibson was sentenced in Brisbane Supreme Court in May to eight years’ jail for violently raping a woman.
He was also sentenced to three years’ jail for being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter, which was ordered to be served cumulatively, and a concurrent two-year sentence for robbery charges.
The court heard Gibson confessed in November 2021 to being an accessory to the manslaughter of 61-year-old Kym Mitchell, whose body was found stuffed in a wheelie bin at a Yeronga unit complex in 2018.
The court also heard Gibson pleaded guilty to four counts of rape and another count of robbery in company.
Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Kelso said Mr Mitchell, 61, died after Gibson’s co-accused assaulted him on November 26, 2018.
Brisbane Supreme Court was told Gibson, who was 41 at the time, helped clean the unit and dispose of Mr Mitchell’s body after the killing took place.
In the days following, Gibson hid at a neighbouring unit complex.
During this time Gibson targeted a woman who was drinking at a Runcorn pub.
The court was told Gibson repeatedly raped the woman in a park.
Gibson’s time spent in custody since 2018 was declared as time served.
He will be eligible for parole in September 2025.
BRISBANE: KEGAN LANCE AULD
Kegan Lance Auld, 20, pleaded guilty to one charge of rape after initially telling police he thought his sleeping friend was consenting to the encounter.
The Brisbane nursing student snuck into his friend’s bedroom and raped her as she slept, the Brisbane District Court heard in August 2022.
Auld was a guest at the woman’s home in December 2020 when he went into her room in the early hours of the morning and digitally penetrated her as she slept.
When interviewed by police about the incident days later, the then-18-year-old Auld claimed he believed his sleeping friend was consenting to the encounter.
Judge Katherine McGinnes said a psychiatrist report showed Auld’s remorse and shame were “genuine” and that he had a low risk of recidivism.
Auld was sentenced to two-and-a-half-years’ imprisonment suspended immediately for an operational period of 2.5 years and walked free from court after narrowly avoiding jail time.
NORMAN PARK, BRISBANE
It was late at night and, after breaking up with his girlfriend and smoking meth, Jacob Michael Smith decided to visit the home of a close female friend in Brisbane.
But when she turned down the 38-year-old’s sexual advances that evening in August 2014, Smith smothered her to death with bedding.
In July, 2022, the Supreme Court of Queensland accepted that Smith, now 45, did not intend to kill the 34-year-old mum – only that he was trying to instil pain and fear.
Smith had already admitted to raping a girl and been sentenced to eight years’ prison, while a life sentence for the woman’s murder was handed down following a trial in 2018.
However, in 2021, Smith was granted a retrial for that matter upon appeal following errors that were made during the original proceedings.
After the retrial of his case this year, Smith was sentenced to 20 years’ prison for the manslaughter of his friend in Brisbane in 2014 after she rejected his sexual advances.
The court was told that Smith later fled the home and hid at another friend’s house, where he admitted to “doing something stupid” and that he had killed someone.
In sentencing him, Justice Soraya Ryan included the eight years he had already been locked up after he pleaded guilty to the charge of manslaughter.
PETRIE: TRAVIS ALEXANDER MANWARRING
Travis Alexander Manwarring, 32, raped and viciously assaulted a Polish nanny while she was out for an evening walk in Petrie in 2016, 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.
SOUTH BURNETT: JOSHUA MARK SKVARILDO
Convicted rapist Joshua Mark Skvaridlo was jailed for breaching his suspended sentence for a third time when he faced Kingaroy Magistrates Court in June.
Skvaridlo, convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl and sexually groping a 12-year-old, fronted court yet again for failing to comply with court orders.
Skvaridlo had faced Kingaroy District Court in 2014 on charges of indecent treatment of a child, where he was sentenced to a 12-month jail suspended sentence and 18 months’ probation for sexually groping a 12-year-old.
In 2018, Skvaridlo was sentenced to five years’ jail, which was suspended after he served 20 months, for raping a 17-year-old girl.
He remains on a suspended sentence for the 2018 matter.
In addition to his sexual crimes, he was in March 2021 placed on 12 months’ probation after he was found drink driving and driving while court disqualified.
The 36-year-old faced Murgon Magistrates Court in April, and pleaded guilty to four counts of failing to comply with reporting obligations.
He failed to report three instances of contact with children between April 2021 and January 2022, and also failed to inform police of stays at his girlfriend’s address. He was sentenced to three months’ jail and immediately released on parole.
Skvaridlo pleaded guilty to breaching probation and was fined $500.
He was also re-sentenced on the original driving charges and fined $1400.
FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND: MARCUS ALLYN KEITH MARTIN
A North Queensland rapist who kidnapped a British backpacker faced fresh charges in October 2022 for attacking two prison guards while serving 10 years behind bars.
Cairns man Marcus Allyn Keith Martin admitted to the rape and kidnapping of a British backpacker before holding her captive on a road trip in 2017 through the Queensland bush.
The bruised and battered Liverpool woman was rescued by police on an outback highway near Mitchell, about 600km west of Brisbane, after Martin drove off from a petrol station without paying for fuel.
He was sentenced to 10 years in jail in May, 2019 for rape and 26 other charges.
As a declared serious violent offender, he was required to serve 80 per cent of the sentence before being eligible for parole.
Martin appeared via video link from custody in the Townsville Correctional Centre in October to be sentenced for the serious assault of a corrective services officer causing bodily harm.
Police prosecutor Mark Fenlon said there was a fresh charge of serious assault of a corrective services officer which would come before the magistrates court at a later date.
The matter was adjourned and Martin will return to court at a later date.
CAIRNS: HENRY JOHN MAREKO
A mistaken belief that a woman wanted to have sex with him resulted in a promising young AFL representative player being convicted of two counts of rape.
Henry John Mareko, 26, pleaded guilty in Cairns District Court in August 2022 over the incident that occurred in Cairns on December 12, 2020.
Crown prosecutor Tegan Grasso said Mareko grabbed the 42-year-old woman in her bedroom and pushed her onto her back and she texted a friend “help me” but her friend did not respond.
He left the room but returned, pinned her down with his knees on her thighs and told her to “shut the ***k up”, Ms Grasso said.
Ms Grasso told the court it was a late plea of guilty and a trial date had been set.
Judge Dean Morzone imposed a sentence of three years on the first count and five years and nine months on the second count, with 609 days spent in custody as time served and a parole date of November 22, 2022.
He said the situation reflected Mareko’s “lack of maturity and realism” and that he was at a low risk of reoffending.
GYMPIE: ALBERT CHARLES MARC CRONIN
A 42-year-old Monkland man was jailed until 2025 for raping and sexually abusing three young girls over a prolonged period.
Albert Charles Marc Cronin pleaded guilty in November 2021 to 11 charges stemming from the abuse, including three counts of rape.
Gympie District Court heard Cronin molested the girls over a two-year period.
Judge Glen Cash said that while the intellectual impairment meant Cronin was “not fully aware of the harm (he was) causing … we will not tolerate people who prey on young girls”.
He sentenced Cronin to nine years’ jail, and ordered that he not be eligible for parole until May 8, 2025, when Cronin had served three-and-a-half years of his sentence.
JOHN HARVEY BARKER
A 73-year-old double amputee has been convicted of several sex offences, including indecent treatment of a child under 16 and rape.
John Harvey Barker pleaded guilty in Gympie District Court in October 2021 to grooming a child under 16, six counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16, rape and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Barker was jailed for three years, with the sentence suspended for five years.
FRASER COAST: GRANDFATHER
A jury found a Fraser Coast grandfather guilty of four counts of rape and one of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child after a three-day trial in Hervey Bay District Court in September.
The jury returned a guilty verdict and Judge Tony Moynihan sentenced the 72-year-old man to five years jail for maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child, and two years and six months jail for four counts of rape.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Crown prosecutor Elise Sargent told the court the offending took place when the girl visited her nan and step-grandfather.
Ms Sargent said it was during those visits the girl’s “pop” touched her inappropriately, penetrating her genitalia, on occasions while her “nan was asleep”, and in the dark when no one was around.
She told the court there were four particular instances the girl remembered, starting from when she was seven years old.
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