Rapist Anthony Sampieri should have been charged before alleged sex attack
Police should have charged Anthony Sampieri instead of letting him go three weeks before he allegedly sexually assaulted a schoolgirl, police chief Mick Fuller said today.
Police should have charged Anthony Sampieri instead of letting him go three weeks before he allegedly raped a schoolgirl, police chief Mick Fuller said today.
The NSW Police Commissioner said police had ramped up their internal investigation into what went wrong when on October 26 a woman reported an obscene phone call which was traced back to Sampieri, 54.
The convicted rapist was on parole after being released from jail last year where he had two years left to serve for raping a 60-year-old woman in 2012.
Had he been charged over the phone call, parole officers would have been automatically informed and Sampieri’s parole would have been breached.
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The senior constable who dealt with the report of the phone call and decided not to charge Sampieri has been stood down and is “stressed and very concerned” Mr Fuller said today.
“At best the organisation potentially has failed to notify the parole board of a potential parole breach and at worst an officer has neglected their duty,” Mr Fuller said.
He said that if Sampieri had been charged, there would have been no question about whether Community Corrections, which monitors parolees, would have been told.
“The first question should be was there a criminal offence and was that appropriately investigated and if there was a prima facie case for Sampieri to answer then he would have been charged criminally, bail would have been refused and he wouldn’t have been on the case,” Mr Fuller said.
“That’s the first question that a commissioner needs to ask.”
He defended the decision of NSW Police to announce the internal investigation at 9.53pm on Tuesday night.
He said that he was told of the mistake at 4.30pm on Tuesday and ensured that the parents of the seven-year-old girl who was allegedly attacked by Sampieri in the toilet of a Kogarah dance studio a week ago were told first before the public.
“If it happened tomorrow I would do the same thing,” he said.
Mr Fuller fronted the media today following criticism by The Daily Telegraph that he had failed to provide answers himself but instead sent one of his deputy commissioners, Jeff Loy, to face a press conference.
He pledged to make public the findings of the internal investigation.
“The NSW Police are committed to the victims of crime. We are committed to the highest standards of public safety,” he said.
“This is not about a systemic failure in the organisation.”
Corrections minister David Elliott has ordered an urgent briefing as to why Sampieri was granted parole last year.
Sampieri has not been charged over the alleged attack of the seven-year-old girl and remains in hospital with injuries suffered when he was apprehended by two men outside the toilet.
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