Unenviable record: 127 dangerous ex-cons living in the community under ESOs
A record number of dangerous ex-cons — including killers and paedophiles — are being monitored in the community under tough court orders imposed as a last resort after soft-sentencing judges let the public down.
NSW
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A record number of dangerous ex-cons, including killers and paedophiles, are being monitored in the community under tough court orders imposed as a last resort after soft-sentencing judges let the public down.
There are now 127 offenders freed under extended supervision orders (ESOs) compared to 56 five years ago.
Victims advocate Howard Brown said some judges had been unwilling to hand down tough sentences after life meant life following the Truth in Sentencing laws in 1989, and would not put cases in the “worst possible” category.
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Now the government and the courts are having to pick up the pieces as serious offenders such as Samantha Knight’s killer Michael Guider and sick paedophile Brian Alan Bowdidge have completed their sentences, while others including triple killer Reginald Arthurell and Lubje Velevski, who slit the throats of his wife and three daughters, come up for automatic release.
“There has been a lack of capacity of some of the judges to accept that here are some people in the world who are just pure evil,” Mr Brown said.
He said he could not believe how Arthurell, 72, who had been convicted of killing twice before murdering the elderly Christian fiancee who helped him get freedom, and monster father Velevski, 55, were not jailed for life.
“How could you not give someone a life sentence for slashing the throats of his wife and children?” he said yesterday.
Like Guider, Velevski has consistently refused to apply for parole, believing he will walk free without any supervision when his sentence ends in two years.
The State of NSW is expected to apply for either a continuing detention order — to keep him locked up as he has refused to take any programs behind bars to address his violence — or an ESO.
So-called party rapist Simon Monteiro, 53, is waiting to see if he will be the latest ex-prisoner to be made subject to an ESO after a judge last month imposed an interim supervision order when his parole ran out on April 7.
The Supreme Court heard he had breached parole several times since his release in February 2018 by secretly trying to meet women and not reporting his movements to parole authorities.
Monteiro was jailed for 12 years and three months for a 2008 attack on his girlfriend, whose home he trashed after she went to police. He had raped her and threatened her with an iron bar.
The State of NSW has applied for an ESP as a matter of urgency
Attorney-General Mark Speakman has also flagged applying for an ESO to protect the public from Arthurell if needed.
Mr Brown said it would be at least 15 years before the number of ESOs required would drop.
“It will take at least that long to keep up with the latest sentencing trends because it is only in the last few years we have seen some significant increase in higher penalties,” he said.
Mr Brown said the life sentence imposed on the former bush fugitive Malcolm Naden in 2013 for the murders of two young women, Kristy Scholes and Lateesha Nolan was a turning point.
In February, predator Anthony Sampieri, 56, became the first person jailed for life in NSW for child rape.
CDOs and ESOs were introduced in 2006 for high-risk sex offenders but the numbers have soared in the past five years since they were extended to include violent offenders, including killers.
It is up to the State of NSW to apply for the orders to the Supreme Court.
Corrective Services NSW said that in 2015, 56 offenders were made subject of an ESO.
There were 66 in 2016, 84 in 2017, 100 in 2018 and 124 last year after the orders were widened to cover violent and sex offenders. Since 2015, 210 offenders have been convicted in court of breaching the conditions of the orders, most of them being jailed with an average non-parole period increasing from 4.4 months in 2015 to 7.2 months in 2018.
Last year the average sentence was 6.8 months non-parole, according to NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics figures. There are currently 78 offenders in jail for breaching an ESO.
A family member of Snezana Velevski, who was murdered by her husband along with their daughter Zaklina, 6, and twin babies Daniele and Dijana at their Berkeley home, said yesterday that it was too distressing to talk about him getting out of jail.
Samantha Knight’s mother Tess Knight said the “government (was) being responsive to community concerns around violent offenders.”
Mr Speakman said NSW made no apology for the toughest post-sentence detention and supervision laws in Australia. The government would not hesitate to move against offenders who posed an unacceptable risk.
“These orders do not replace or supplement sentencing decisions of the past. They protect community safety by responding to present and future risk posed by an offender at the end of their sentence,” he said.
“For such applications to succeed, the Supreme Court needs to be persuaded of this risk to a high degree of probability
“These orders do not replace of supplement sentencing decision of the past. They protect community safety by responding the present and future risk posed by an offender at the end of their sentence.”