Convicted paedophile Neil Duncan to face court again after bail breach

Pony club president Neil Duncan — who breached his bail before being let out again — will head back to court after the Attorney-General intervened to ask that the convicted paedophile be locked up until his sentencing.

Pony club president and convicted paedophile Neil Duncan is headed back to court as the state’s top prosecutor will be asking for him to be locked up pending his sentencing after the intervention of Attorney-General Mark Speakman.

Mr Speakman stepped in after The Daily Telegraph revealed that Duncan, 67, had breached his initial bail conditions by going unaccompanied to a kids’ gymkhana but had been granted bail again.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will be making an application in the District Court to have his bail refused and to have him detained until his sentence is handed down on August 5.

“Following my request to the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions to review the bail decision concerning Neil Duncan, I have today received advice from an Acting Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions that he has directed that a detention application be made in respect of Neil Duncan,” Mr Speakman said on Friday.

The matter has yet to be listed in court but it is understood that it will go ahead early next week.

Convicted paedophile Neil Duncan. Pictures: Jack Tran

Meanwhile Duncan, a former pony club president from the south coast, remains on conditional bail at his family’s horse stud outside Tamworth.

He was released on bail by Judge Robyn Tupman in the District Court sitting at Queanbeyan on June 2 despite being convicted by a jury of eight counts of sexually touching girls aged between 10 and 16 in 2018 and 2020.

The judge had rejected an application at the time to refused him bail pending his sentence.

The Daily Telegraph on Friday revealed that the judge said the “mere” fact he had been convicted was no reason to lock him up until he had been sentenced.

As the government races to close the loophole of convicted paedophiles and sex offenders getting bail pending their sentence, judge Robyn Tupman’s reasons for bailing Duncan have been released by the ­District Court.

Judge Tupman said there was no reason to find he would not turn up at court after his conviction because he was no more a “flight risk” than he had been during the previous two years he had been on bail awaiting trial, in which he had pleaded not guilty.

Attorney-General Mark Speakman. Picture: Gaye Gerard

The judge said the victims in the case, who she referred to as “complainants”, were in no ­danger because the former south coast pony club president had moved from his Bega home to Tamworth, where he was back in court on Monday after being arrested for breaching bail after attending a kids’ gymkhana at Narrabri without a court-ordered family member accompanying him.

“There is no demonstrated risk to any other children,” the judge said when she granted him bail at Queanbeyan District Court on June 2.

Duncan, 67, had been convicted by a jury of eight counts of sexually touching girls aged between 10 and 16 in 2018 and 2020.

“In my view the evidence to support the detention application (by the prosecution) is merely that he has now been convicted, which is said to ­increase his flight risk, which as a matter of general logic and principle is correct, but in this case it is not a significant ­reality or at least not one that cannot be alleviated or obviated by the appropriate conditions,” Judge Tupman said.

Neil Duncan, pictured outside Bega Local Court.

The judge said there was a “very high likelihood, if not inevitability, that there will be a term of imprisonment” when she sentences him on August 5.

His bail conditions include reporting to police once a week and he cannot leave his family’s sprawling horse stud at Timbumburi, near Tamworth, except in the company of a family member. He was not with the family member at the weekend’s pony club event.

His bail was continued on Monday in Tamworth Local Court.

It was as a result of The Daily Telegraph revealing that Duncan and another paedophile, Robert Van Gestel, had been granted bail after being convicted of serious offences that Attorney-General Mark Speakman this week pledged he would have tough new laws before cabinet by next month.

Mr Speakman said the reforms were “triggered by the events of the last week”.