Brian Daphney’s lawyer said he would offer office phone to use in the future for Daphney to report

A dangerous sex offender living rough on the streets who breached his lifelong reporting requirements will go to jail if he keeps ‘stuffing up’ his reporting.

A SEX offender living rough on the streets who breached his lifelong reporting requirements has narrowly avoided being returned to jail.

Brian John Daphney was facing charges of failing to comply with his sexual offender reporting requirements four times in as many months between September to December this year.

He pleaded guilty to the four charges from the dock at Townsville Magistrates Court last week.

Police prosecutor Mark Fenlon told the court Daphney, had a previous breach of his lifelong requirements as a reportable offender under the Child Protection Act, including one from May 2020.

Daphney’s latest breaches started in September, when he was released from custody and tried to report to a local police station.

Police made arrangements for Daphney to report at the station at a certain date, but because of his curfew, he asked for another day – but he never showed up.

The court was told Daphney failed to report for the whole month of November, and also didn’t notify authorities about no longer living at the St Vincent de Paul homeless shelter.

Daphney’s lawyer, Luay Allawy of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service, told the court that his client had been homeless since November.

Mr Allawy told Magistrate Maxine Baldwin the reporting breaches weren’t alleged to have been done to hide contact with children.

He said he would allow Daphney to use the office phone to report to police, and would allow him to use the phone in the future if he needed assistance.

Ms Baldwin told Daphney if he wanted to stay out of jail he had to keep reporting.

“You have got to get a system going, because this is forever … I think you’re on the way to another jail term if you keep stuffing it up,” Ms Baldwin said.

Daphney was ordered to complete 60 hours of community service.

Originally published as Brian Daphney’s lawyer said he would offer office phone to use in the future for Daphney to report