Robert John Fardon release 2019: Serial rapist told prisoners about his crimes and what he’d do when released
Prisoners and correctional staff who spent time with serial sex offender Robert Fardon have described him as ‘putrid,’ and ‘sick’ after he bragged about what he intended to do to women and children once out of jail.
Crime and Court
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SERIAL sex offender Robert John Fardon would brag about what he intended to do to women and children once he left jail, say other prisoners.
As Fardon walks free on Queensland streets this month, former prisoners and Correctional Services staff in 2013 spoke about his three decades behind bars.
A former drug user recalls at first not recognising Fardon as they were separated by a perspex partition during processing at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre at Wacol in 1994.
As they sat for five hours together, Fardon opened up about his crimes which had included carnal knowledge of a 10-year-old girl and the rape and sodomy of a 12-year-old.
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“He was waiting to go to protection and I was waiting to go to mainstream,’’ the recovering drug user said.
“Not knowing who he was, I spoke to him and he wasn’t concerned at all about what he told me. It was making me sick.
“He wouldn’t shut up about what he was going to do to women and kids when he got out. I couldn’t help but to ask why.
“He said he had needs and couldn’t help acting on those needs. I called him sick and all the other names that describe a mutt like him, but he tried to insist he was just like a drug addict.’’
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One of the ex-prisoner’s mates, who was not a paedophile but placed in protection for his own safety, was forced to share a cell with Fardon.
“He clubbed Fardon because he used to brag about some of the sick shit he did,’’ the ex-prisoner said.
A former prison officer who worked with prisoners in protective custody recalls Fardon refusing to undertake a sexual offender’s program.
“I knew Fardon. He would never talk to us (about his crimes). But he’s definitely screwed. He will never stop,’’ the former Correctional Services staffer said.
Fardon was a “loudmouth’’ who would be abusive to staff if he did not get his own way.
“Fardon is going to interfere with some children and rape a woman again,’’ the ex-prison officer said.
“That’s his go. That’s the only thing he’s ever done.’’
A prison guard working out of the Townsville Correctional Centre told the Bulletin yesterday that Fardon was a germ when he served time in the North Queensland jail.
“He was real grimy, a putrid human being,” the guard said. “He was a nothing person, dirty, yes, but no worse than a lot of the other grubs in there.
“He had a lot of notoriety, but everyone steered clear of him, it was like he was a leper.”
A former friend who recalls Murwillumbah-born Fardon as a teenager could not understand how his life turned.
Fardon was 18 when in 1966 he pleaded guilty to attempted carnal knowledge of a girl under 10 and was placed on a bond.
He had been living with his aunt and uncle and often drove to Tweed Heads to fish by the river.
“He was as good as gold in those days,” the former friend told the Bulletin in 2013. “He would go tenpin bowling. He’d go out for a meal.”
After the vicious rape of a 12-year-old and Fardon’s sentencing to eight years jail in 1980 gained him notoriety, the ex-friend instinctively knew he would take advantage of the innocent and vulnerable.
“If he saw a child, he’d snap. He only has to have alcohol and drugs and it happens,’’ he said.
What did Fardon think of his past and why did he argue for his release?
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His thoughts were outlined in a submission presented on his behalf to the Human Rights committee in March 2007.
Fardon maintained the new Sexual Offenders law being used to keep him inside imposed “double punishment without further determination of criminal guilt’’.
He argued he had served his punishment for rape, yet was being subjected to jail as if he had been convicted of another crime.
The report noted: “He (Fardon) adds that his detention is neither justified by mental illness.’’
Is Fardon mentally ill?
When asked in 2013, Gaven MP Dr Alex Douglas, who has had 20 years experience with Corrective Services, could not talk specifically about Fardon but explained a typical offender’s psychological make-up.
Most dangerous sex offenders have had an incident in their youth, they show no remorse for crimes and do not have a mental illness.
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In parliament at the time, Dr Douglas said: “They are not only dangerous but calculating, often homicidal psychopaths who, far from showing any remorse, are incessantly planning the next offence.’’
A psychologist at an early hearing discussing Fardon’s release diagnosed him with post-traumatic distress order caused by a childhood trauma when he was seven.
Another psychologist said Fardon had a complex psychopathy.
Both specialists acknowledged that Fardon wanted to change and had improved his relations with Corrective Services staff.
But the veteran former Corrective Services staffer remembers Fardon refusing to attend a sexual offenders program.
His one wish for Fardon has gone ungranted: “Hopefully he will die in prison,’’ the former officer said.
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