Australia’s youngest murderer breached extended supervision order when monitored by support worker ‘not up to task’: Judge

The judge presiding over the immediate fate of Australia’s youngest ever murderer has expressed alarm over how a support worker who was “clearly not up to the task” was responsible for monitoring a violent criminal.

SLD (under a towel) with police after the murder of Courtney Morley-Clarke in 2001.

The judge presiding over the immediate fate of Australia’s youngest ever murderer has expressed alarm about how a support worker who was “clearly not up to the task” was responsible for monitoring a violent criminal.

Judge William Fitzsimmons vented his concerns during the sentencing hearing for the Central Coast child killer who can only be referred to as a three-letter acronym given he was just 13 when he took the life of three-year-old Courtney Morley-Clarke in 2001.

SLD, now 37, snatched Courtney from her bed in her family’s Point Clare home before stabbing her through the chest and discarding her lifeless body down a grassy ditch.

The killer spent more than two decades behind bars before being released in 2023 on a NSW Supreme Court-imposed extended supervision order (ESO) which at the time fewer than 200 of the state’s most high-risk violence, sex and terrorism offenders were subjected to.

Within weeks of release SLD was back behind bars after being charged with three counts of breaching the ESO, specifically a requirement barring him from “associating” with children.

Courtney Morley-Clarke was three when she was murdered.

SLD pleaded not guilty to the charges stemming from a day at Bulli Beach in October, 2023, where the man approached three separate women with children while he was meant to be monitored by an NDIS support worker who was supposed to enforce a “line of sight” condition.

In a judge-alone trial at Wollongong District Court earlier this year, Judge Fitzsimmons found the offender had associated with one of the children, an infant, who was being showered by their mother.

Australia's youngest murderer approached a woman showering her child at Bulli Beach.

“He freely and voluntarily engaged in further conversation [with the mother about the child who] would have been obviously a toddler-aged child,” the judge said.

“He deliberately chose to comment on the child’s physical appearance while the child was unable to interact with the accused.”

During a sentencing hearing in Sydney District Court on Thursday, the court heard of a previous ESO breach in July, 2023, when SLD hacked a blade out of a razor which he used to make “superficial lacerations”.

Judge Fitzsimmons said SLD tried to “make a point” by continuing to cut himself if he was not let out. The judge opined this breach was “more serious” than the one he was presiding over.

Instead, Judge Fitzsimmons voiced what he found to be the most concerning factor – a slight in stature support worker two weeks into the job being employed to supervise a hardened criminal.

“I don’t think anyone here would disagree with this observation, the person who was supervising him on the day was clearly not up to the task and it troubles me,” he said.

“He was permitted to be at a public beach while there were going to be children present with the supervision of a delegate who is clearly not up to the task... It is troubling that this was allowed to occur.

“To be quite frank, how much confidence can the court have that a supervision order will be properly implemented and enforced when on this particular day the line of sight condition was not complied with on at least one occasion?”

SLD will be sentenced on Monday.

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