Serial sex offender Robert John Fardon not welcome on Gold Coast say MPs and victims

MPs and victims have reacted with anger to news that serial rapist and sex offender Robert John Fardon is a free man. And they have reason to fear he will return to the Coast

“We don’t want you on the Gold Coast.”

That was the message today from MPs and victims after it was revealed notorious rapist Robert John Fardon is out on the streets.

The Bulletin in August last year reported health support service leaders and MPs feared he would return to the Glitter Strip.

Gold Coast Centre Against Sexual Violence director Di McLeod, who has cared for victims attacked by Fardon, knows a predator like the 69-year-old will almost certainly strike again and most likely here.

“He was born down here on the Tweed border. If past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour, then it’s not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ he’s likely to offend again,” Ms McLeod told the Bulletin at the time.

Rapist Robert John Fardon

LNP spokesperson for women Ros Bates today called on authorities to upgrade their monitoring of Fardon. The Mudgeeraba MP has provided support to his Coast victims.

“He should have a GPS tracker on him. He should be monitored around the clock,” Ms Bates said.

“He should have an order where he can’t contact any of his previous victims. They don’t want to be living in fear of him turning up in their neighbourhood.

“We don’t want him on the Gold Coast.”

Fardon has been offending since 1967 when he was 18. He has raped females as young as 12.

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The big fear about Fardon is he will return to the Coast where he committed some of his notorious offences.

Fardon was born in Murwillumbah and on release has a habit of returning to the Glitter Strip where he built up previous relationships, targeting vulnerable women.

A Gold Coast Bulletin report in 2013 revealed two of Fardon’s victims were living within a kilometre of each other when he allegedly committed his last rape, a mentally impaired woman, at Palm Beach in 2008. He was found guilty and jailed for 10 years, only for the conviction to be quashed.

On release from the Wacol prison at the time, Fardon would travel south to the Coast each day, visiting a disabled woman he had known as a teenager.

Fardon sodomised the woman who later saw a doctor and made a complaint to police which led to his arrest. She has since feared for her life and sought help to protect herself.