Newcastle: Warren John McCorriston faces sentence hearing for 1980 abduction attempt of teenage girl

Sentencing proceedings for a sex offender, who has now also admitted attempting to abduct a teenage girl from Newcastle 45 years ago, has heard he remains at the centre of Queensland police allegations.

Warren McCorriston faced a sentencing hearing in Newcastle District Court on Thursday. (Picture: Supplied)

A judge has been asked to decide if a sex offender should be spared more jail time because the timing of his charge for attempting to abduct a teenage girl in Newcastle more than 45 years ago meant he remained in prison after serving his minimum sentence for sexually assaulting multiple women.

And Newcastle District Court has also heard that, although now on parole for the attacks on the three women between 1980 and 1999, Warren John McCorriston was still the subject of police allegations in Queensland allegedly committed when he was aged in his late 50s.

McCorriston can again be formally identified as a sex offender after an order prohibiting the publication of his identity was lifted – almost six months after multiple news organisations were also ordered to remove a long series of articles about him dating back more than five years.

The now 64-year-old had been set for a fresh trial this year for the attempted abduction of the 16-year-old girl in Newcastle in 1980 before he decided to plead guilty to one count of detaining for advantage without causing an injury to the victim.

McCorriston ran up behind the girl after she had got off a bus and grabbed her, telling her to get in his car and that he was armed with a knife.

Warren McCorriston remains on parole for the attacks on three women between 1980 and 1999. (File Picture: Rhianna Bull / Whitsunday Times)

McCorriston had been charged by Lake Macquarie detectives on the fresh count last year, and as his 4½ -year non-parole period for attacking the three women was about to end in July, 2024.

And his sentence hearing in Newcastle District Court on Thursday heard that the principal of totality needed to be considered in sentencing McCorriston for the abduction charge.

Warren McCorriston will be sentenced over the 1980 attempted abduction on June 26. (File picture)

Judge Tim Gartelmann SC heard that McCorriston could have been released on parole last July, and had spent over 200 extra days in jail before he was finally released in February this year as he was granted bail on the fresh allegations and a formal parole hearing.

He heard arguments about whether the extra time that McCorriston had spent in jail could have equalled his penalty on the abduction charge if he had been sentenced at the same time he was jailed for a maximum eight-and-a-half years for the attacks on the three other women.

McCorriston could also be sentenced to an intensive correction order and serve any further term of imprisonment in the community, the court heard.

Barrister Ben Bickford, for McCorriston, also submitted that while he did not wish to downplay the seriousness of the offence, there were a series of reasons why his client should not face any more full-time imprisonment for the latest charge.

They included McCorriston’s youth at the time – he was aged 18 when he told the girl he was armed with a knife and she should get into his car – and there was evidence McCorriston had recognised he had possessed a “distorted view” of the world due to a dysfunctional childhood.

Warren McCorriston

The court also heard the allegation was not a “significantly grave example” of the abduction charge, McCorriston had undergone significant rehabilitation for his crimes while in jail, and that he had shown remorse.

McCorriston was also serving a “quasi-custody sentence” while in the community because of his onerous parole conditions, including electronic monitoring and a curfew, which will continue until his head sentence ends in 2028.

But the Crown prosecutor submitted that McCorriston’s rehabilitation was still a “work in progress” and there remained “outstanding allegations" which McCorriston had yet to face in Queensland dating back to when he was in his 50s.

The Crown said McCorriston’s behaviour, where he had told the girl: “I have a knife, get in my car, I want to talk”, had had such a significant impact on the victim that she was still able to pick him out of a photographic list of 20 suspects some 43 years later.

And the prosecutor added that McCorriston only “desisted”, or stopped, trying to abduct the girl when she began to scream and ran off.

McCorriston’s arrest in 2020 made headlines after a police strike force investigating the disappearance of three girls in Lake Macquarie sensationally took him into custody in Queensland.

No one has been charged over any of the girls’ disappearances.

He was extradited in 2020 and originally charged with 28 offences relating to the assaults and rapes of three women in the Hunter between 1980 and 1999.

He pleaded guilty in 2021 to five charges involving the three women and was jailed for eight years and six months with a non-parole period of four years and six months.

McCorriston was released on parole on February 13 this year after the state did not oppose his release.

His parole hearing heard he had completed his program pathway in custody, accepted responsibility for his offending and would continue to see a psychologist and access therapeutic interventions in the community.

McCorriston was due to be housed at a facility run by Corrective Services NSW and under the supervision of Corrections personnel.
He was subject to mandatory electronic monitoring and had to provide daily activity schedules.

The parole release also involved a list of conditions, including not contacting the victims, an alcohol and gambling ban, and to not visit the Lake Macquarie local government area unless he was travelling to and from court in Newcastle.

His parole on the charges in relation to the three women was not due to expire until July 7, 2028.