The Daily Telegraph editorial: Serious juvenile offenders should be identified once they turn 18

The Daily Telegraph’s ongoing and compelling investigation into our secret state has revealed another glaring case of a juvenile justice system that is flawed.

• Janet Fife-Yeomans: Flawed system shields criminals

Children are impulsive. They may make hasty, possibly even ruinous, decisions that are not informed by maturity.

This is why we have laws that ban the identification of those who commit criminal acts while still in childhood.

That identification ban, however, remains in place even after a child becomes an adult. Someone who commits a crime before reaching the age of 18 is safe from being publicly named.

There is a certain logic to this. Many will accept that an adult should not be judged by their childhood actions. After all, any given adult may have a very different personality than he or she possessed as a youngster.

But in some cases personality traits exhibited by a young person only become more entrenched with age. As the twig is bent, it is said, so grows the tree.

There is also the obvious issue of the broader public’s right to know a criminal’s background, even if that background goes back further than adulthood. This forms yet another element of The Daily Telegraph’s ongoing and compelling investigation into our secret state.

All of these concerns are involved in the case of DL, as he may only be named, who could soon be released from prison 13 years into his 22-year term.

Aged 16, DL, above after his arrest and leaving the Supreme Court after being found guilty of murdering Tania Burgess who he stabbed 48 times.

DL received that sentence in 2005 for the vicious murder of 15-year-old Central Coast schoolgirl Tania Burgess. The killer, now 29, stalked his victim after she got off the bus at Forresters Beach and stabbed her nearly 50 times in the head, neck and chest.

Tania’s mother Mandy, who had previously been brutally assaulted in her home by DL, is now campaigning to for identification of violent child criminals once they turn 18. “I don’t want him out hurting anyone else,” the still-distressed parent told The Daily Telegraph. “I don’t want it to be someone else’s daughter.”

Juvenile justice staff obviously know DL’s background and true identity. They are clearly fearful of him being released.

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable him walking around,” one prison official said.

“He’s got a baby-face look so he doesn’t look alarming, which is how a lot of murderers get away with it,” the officer added. “You wouldn’t look at him as threatening, only if you knew him you wouldn’t go near him.”

The public, of course, would not have that security. We are not allowed to know.

DUBBO’S DOWNPOUR DANCER

Considering how emotionally repressed Australian men are alleged to be, they have a fine tradition of sudden dancing.

One of the most famous examples took place in Sydney’s Elizabeth St, where a never-identified chap danced with pure delight following the end of World War II.

Possibly the happiest man in NSW right now.

And now we have Ben Goatcher, who celebrated Dubbo’s big rainfall with a spectacular mud mambo.

He’s no Baryshnikov, certainly, but even the Great Russian would have struggled to keep a beer in his hand under those conditions. Well done, Ben, and here’s to further downpours.

FISSION FOR A POWER FIX

Some years ago, then-Queensland premier Peter Beattie condemned talk of nuclear plants in Australia.

“If we have nuclear reactors it will sabotage our second biggest industry in Australia, and that’s tourism,” Beattie claimed.

“How do you promote Queensland as beautiful one day, nuclear reactive the next?”

A few years later, however, Beattie raved about Paris.

“Greater Paris is home to more than 10 million people who are annually outnumbered by 27 million tourists,” Beattie wrote. “It is easy to see why Paris is a tourism magnet.” Beattie did not mention that France has nearly 60 nuclear reactors, including one outside Paris. It seems tourists have no concerns about a “nuclear reactive” French capital.

The Goesgen Nuclear Power Plant near Daeniken, Northern Switzerland in 2016. Picture: AFP

Nor should Australians be worried about nuclear power. As Tania Constable points out, Australia is perfectly suited to adopting nuclear power.

We have the essential resources. We are geologically stable. We apparently need something to replace coal.

And it wouldn’t hurt tourism in the slightest. Just ask Peter.

The Daily Telegraph, printed and published by the proprietor, Nationwide News Pty Ltd A.C.N. 008438828 of 2 Holt St, Surry Hills NSW 2010, at 26-52 Hume Highway, Chullora. Responsibility for election comment is taken by the Editor, Ben English.