Paedophile Ronald Dean King allowed to return to NSW Northern Rivers

A court has given the green light to a loathed paedophile to return to the region where he broke into a home and raped his four-year-old child victim in her bedroom.

The NSW Supreme Court has ruled that Ronald King can return to the Northern Rivers region of NSW to live. Picture: AAP Image

A paedophile will be able to return to the NSW region where he broke into a home and raped a child, despite repeatedly breaching court orders, and warnings from experts that he’s a “significant risk” of further sex crimes.

Ronald King was 23 when he broke into a home in Grafton, entered the room of a sleeping four-year-old girl, crawled into her bed and abused her.

He was drunk and DNA evidence led to his arrest.

King had also broken into two other homes and into the bedrooms of girls, aged 7 and 11, but had not abused those children.

The paedophile himself was “shocked” when a NSW District Court judge decided not to lock him up for the attack — he’d even bought a rice cooker to prepare for life behind bars.

But the Court of Criminal Appeal found that decision was “manifestly inadequate” and locked him away for seven years.

The court, in its reasons, concluded King was intoxicated and that was an “aggravating factor” in his attack on the child. He has since left prison but has been forced to live in Sydney, where he has repeatedly breached his release conditions.

A court has ruled Ronald King can return to the Northern Rivers region of NSW to live.

King has consistently struggled to stay away from drugs and alcohol, failed to attend appointments, maintains unhealthy attitudes toward sex, and has barely engaged with court-ordered risk management programs, court documents released this week say.

A court placed King on an extended supervision order (ESO) to try and control his spiralling behaviour in 2015 but, since then, has repeatedly breached that order as well.

Just weeks after being placed on the ESO he tested positive for the drug ice — the first of nine breaches in the past seven years.

King has done stints behind bars after being caught taking meth, taking cannabis, accessing porn, contacting people in breach of his ESO, failing to take his medication, and allowing someone to come inside his home.

He’s spent about the same amount of time behind bars as in the community over the past seven years.

Psychological experts have warned the courts he shows limited insight and plenty of risk.

“(One expert) noted that the applicant had shown that he gravitated towards antisocial people, and had acknowledged in engaging in a number of casual sexual relationships over the course of the ESO,” NSW Supreme Court Judge David Davies SC noted on Friday.

The experts are split on whether King is a paedophile.

“I no longer ascribe to the view that Mr King holds an entrenched deviant sexual interest in children,” one expert told the court.

“However, a high sex drive, use of sex as a coping mechanism, and a sense of sexual entitlement are all relevant to the issue of risk, and these do appear to remain relevant for Mr King even up to the present day.”

Another expert also warned the court this year that King poses a “significant risk of engaging in further sex offending behaviours in the community in the long-term”, and if he keeps taking drugs King could be considered “unacceptably high” risk.

The court concluded King is not in control of his meth addiction, and noted that his pornography breach involved a website of “teenage girls”.

He asked the NSW Supreme Court to remove his ESO but on Friday Justice David Davies SC refused.

But it wasn‘t a total defeat for King, who has long campaigned to have his supervisors allow him to live in his native Maclean with his family.

That will put him a 35-minute drive from the town where he abused the girl in 2007.

The judge ruled King now can reside in the Clarence Valley area unless he is charged or convicted of breaching the ESO again or if his supervisor feels it increases his risk of offending.

King will also not be able to return if there is no suitable accommodation in the eyes of the authorities.

The judge also ruled King can have adults stay at his house if he informs his supervisor a day beforehand.

King also needs to ask, 24 hours in advance, to drink alcohol and remains on very strict other orders which experts hope will keep him in check.

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