Douglas Jackway, notorious pedophile and one-time suspect in Daniel Morcombe case, released from jail

Notorious pedophile Douglas Jackway is set to be released from prison despite a psychologist who assessed him warning he is a “high risk of reoffending in a sexual manner”.

Notorious pedophile and one-time prime suspect in the abduction and murder of Daniel Morcombe is set to be released from jail.

Douglas Jackway, who has spent most of his adult life in prison, will be released from jail on a supervision order.

Jackway, who is 44 and has spent 25 years behind bars, will live in the Wacol precinct where other sex offenders are housed and will be required to wear a GPS tracker.

His release today came despite one psychologist who assessed him warning that Jackway is a “high risk of reoffending in a sexual manner if released into the community without a supervision order”.

The doctor said that risk only dropped to a moderate category with the imposition of the supervision order.

Brian Douglas Jackway

This was the Jackway’s seventh annual attempt to be released on a supervision order with judges previously ordering he remain locked up.

Jackway has committed more than 113 prison violations over the past 15 years including acts of violence against other inmates.

He assaulted another prisoner in May this year by backhanding him during a disagreement.

Justice Sue Brown said while it was onerous, the 15-year supervision order was necessary due to the amount of time it would take Jackway to reintegrate with society after spending so much time in prison.

“However, the respondent is somebody who has become institutionalised given he has been incarcerated for most of his adult life, since he was 18,” she wrote.

“His diagnoses are such that it is anticipated that he will take longer to adapt and develop positive networks than would be expected for other individuals and to ameliorate his risk of sexual offending in the community to a level where the adequate protection of the community can be ensured without a supervision order at all.

“In this regard, I place considerable weight on the psychiatrists’ evidence as to the time that it is likely to take for the respondent to reach a point where he is an acceptable risk without a supervision order.”

Justice Brown said the order allowed for Queensland Corrective Services to adjust the terms of the supervision order to allow Jackway “greater freedoms as time progresses if his conduct supports a relaxing of the conditions to which he is subject”.

Douglas Jackway captured in police surveillance which was used in the Daniel Morcombe trial. Picture: Supplied

Evidence was also put before the court that Jackway had been abusing drugs while in prison up until as recently as March this year.

He told his treating psychologist that he had stopped using because he was “over” it, not because the drug supply in prisons became scarce during the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Jackway also admitted that despite his claimed abstinence from drugs, he would remain vulnerable to opioids and would need to go on a program if released.

“(The psychologist) agreed that Mr Jackway’s apparent abstinence from drugs since March 2020 was not an unequivocal marker of improved behaviour insofar as he abused substances until March and drugs were less available after March 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions,” Justice Brown wrote in her judgment.

“(The doctor) said that he had assumed that the fact that COVID-19 has meant drugs were not coming into the prison and were therefore less available would have been part of the rationale in Mr Jackway’s ceasing to use drugs.

“Given what (the doctor) understood about Mr Jackway, he stated that he tended to believe Mr Jackway when he told him that he had stopped using drugs.”

Douglas Brian Jackway when he was named as a suspect in Daniel Morcombe case.

A judgment summary made public today said the Supreme Court was satisfied the community would be protected.

“There are a number of protective factors in place to detect any escalation of risk towards reoffending by Mr Jackway,” the summary said.

“Given the complexity of his conditions and the fact that he has become institutionalised after such a long period of imprisonment, the term of the supervision order has been made for 15 years.”

Jackway spent time in prison for abducting a young boy who was out riding his bicycle. He drove the little boy to a secluded spot and sexually assaulted him.

One investigator involved in the Morcombe investigation was shocked at the decision.

“There’ll be carnage for some poor victims as a result,” they said.

Douglas Brian Jackway was a one-time suspect in the murder and abduction of Daniel Morcombe.

A prisoner officer said Jackway was the worst inmate he’d seen in his career.

“The consequences of what he could do outweighs anything,” he said.

“I’ve known him since the 1990s. Without doubt he is the worst sex offender that I’ve seen. He is the worst of the worst, the top 10 in Australia, easy.

“He is just one piece of shit.

“He’s just a predator. You have you pedophiles. But he is a violent pedophile. It makes him so dangerous.

“He always picked on the weak people.”

The officer said Jackway “would have been involved in so many incidents in jail, in the hundreds”.

“But they don’t seem to take that into account.”

Jackway is currently housed at Brisbane Correctional Centre.

He has spent most of his time at nearby Wolston jail until recently.