Sick triple killer and rapist could be blocked from parole release

The state’s parole board will consider barring a notorious triple killer and rapist from applying for parole under tough new laws to keep our worst criminals behind bars.

Triple killer and rapist John Brian Woodman. Picture: Contributed

QUEENSLAND’S parole board will consider barring triple killer and rapist John Brian Woodman from applying for parole under tough new laws aimed at keeping the worst of the worst behind bars.

Woodman’s crimes were so heinous that a court ordered the 16-year-old could be identified after he was convicted in 2007 for rape, two murders and a manslaughter committed during a horrifying attack at Toowoomba in 2005.

Woodman and his co-offender Scott Geoffrey Maygar were responsible for the terrifying and violent deaths of three males in the unprovoked and prolonged attack in which their victims were tortured and brutalised.

During the harrowing ordeal, they held a knife to newborn baby’s throat and raped the child’s young mother whose boyfriend they had just murdered.

Michael Thompson, 30, David Lyons, 17, and Tyson Wilson, 17, were all killed during the attack widely regarded as one of the state’s most shocking and violent crimes.

The Parole Board Queensland will meet on Thursday to consider whether to make an order delaying Woodman from applying from parole.

Woodman is classified a “restricted prisoner” under new Corrective Services legislation which was introduced last year in response to widespread outrage over a parole bid made by sadistic child killer Barrie Watts.

Scott Geoffrey Maygar.

The changes allow the Parole Board Queensland to make a declaration that a “restricted prisoner” – a person convicted of murdering a child or murdering multiple people – can be blocked from getting parole for up to 10 years beyond their eligibility date.

Multiple declarations can be made against the same person.

Earlier this year, child killers Gregory Andrew Brownsey and Alan William Craig were the first two people in Queensland to be declared as “restricted prisoners” and prevented from applying for parole under the new legislation.

Under the order, Craig, who murdered his two-year-old nephew by slitting his throat at a property near Bundaberg in 2006, will be prevented from applying for parole for another five years with the order expiring in March 2027.

Brownsey, who was convicted of the 1988 murder of Strathpine teenager Justin Somers, was blocked from applying for parole for another eight years, with the order to run until June 6, 2030.

In 2007, Woodman was sentenced to life detention with parole eligibility after he had served 15 years.

The parole board’s decision in relation to whether Woodman will have his parole eligibility pushed back will be announced at a later date.