Joshua McDonald, Yarrun Morgan, Mark Tyers: Mildura’s worst sex offenders exposed

From a man who brutally raped a young woman to a fiend who plied teenagers with drugs in return for sex acts, these are the worst sex offenders in north-west Victoria.

From a man who brutally raped a young woman to a fiend who plied teenagers with drugs in return for sex acts — these are the worst sex offenders to have faced Mildura’s court in the past year.

Mark Bruce Tyers

A Red Cliffs man who sexually assaulted a vulnerable teenage girl was jailed for one year and placed on an 18 month community corrections order.

Mark Bruce Tyers, 52, was sentenced at the County Court in November after pleading guilty to sexual penetration of a child.

The court heard the 16-year-old girl had been making a photo album as a birthday present when Tyers took her to a room to look for more pictures in 2016.

Once in the room, he kissed her on the lips and told her he had feelings for her but the girl told Tyers she was not interested.

The man tried to talk to her about sex but the girl said she would prefer to talk to her mum.

Tyers then sexually assaulted her.

The girl tried to pull away, telling him she felt uncomfortable, but Tyers held her down.

After Tyers assaulted her, the girl told him she didn’t want him to touch her anymore but he told the girl not to tell anyone.

In a victim impact statement, the woman said she no longer trusted men.

The victim’s mother said it was hard to put her betrayal into words.

She said the anger and pain she felt had no end and Tyers had taken advantage of the girl because of her age.

He will remain a registered sex offender for 15 years.

Joshua Baird

Joshua Baird, 26, was jailed for five years after pleading guilty to 56 charges related to grooming and child porn and was placed on the sex offender’s list for life in Mildura’s County Court in September.

The Swan Hill paedophile groomed 36 children online, encouraging them to send him sexually explicit images

Baird was caught in October 2019 when a Canadian mother found a series of conversations between her 14-year-old daughter and a username ‘Bairdy888’ on Instagram, Snapchat and the messenger app kik.

She took about 600 screenshots of the conversations, which included multiple requests for explicit photos, explicit and videos photos of ‘Bairdy888’, child and adult pornography and an offer by ‘Bairdy888’ to host the victim in Australia.

Over a three-month police investigation, it was found ‘Bairdy888’ was Joshua Baird of Swan Hill.

He grew up in Swan Hill and worked in a funeral home until he was fired when his offending came to light.

Yarrum Morgan

A Mildura man who committed a “brutal, demeaning” rape and assault on a stranger as she left the pub was jailed for a maximum of five years.

Yarrun Morgan, 24, faced the Mildura County Court in November, where he had previously pleaded guilty to rape and recklessly causing serious injury.

Judge Michael Bourke said Morgan had been awake for days, bingeing on methamphetamine and alcohol, when he approached his victim in the early hours of the morning on a bridge over the Murray River.

Morgan grabbed the unsuspecting woman in a “bear hug” from behind and put his hand down her pants.

He then punched her in the face, breaking her eye socket and knocking her over a guard rail onto the river bank.

Morgan’s lawyers negotiated with prosecutors to downgrade the charge stemming from the punch to the woman’s face, because he was drunk, drugged and only hit her once.

Morgan will be eligible for parole in mid-2024.

Brenton George Healey

Brenton George Healey pleaded guilty to 14 charges including sexual penetration of a child aged under 16.

A Mildura sex fiend was sentenced to a maximum of six years and three months in jail after two teenage girls, who he’d been supplying with drugs in return for sex acts, turned on him and bashed him with weapons.

Brenton George Healey, 34, was sentenced in the County Court in July, having pleaded guilty to charges including sexual penetration of a child under 16 and supplying drugs of dependence to a child.

Healey plied a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl with meth, cocaine, MDMA and cannabis then pushed them to perform sex acts with him for months last year.

The court heard he began contact with the 17-year-old when he messaged her on Snapchat last year.

He taught the girls how to smoke meth and gave them alcohol, before taking them to his house to smoke cannabis.

The court heard he spent nights with the girls, and one night, after they had all smoked meth, sexually touched both girls, also penetrating the 15-year-old.

Healey was sentenced to a maximum of nine years’ and six months’ jail, having already served 297 days.

Cameron O’Brien

A serial Mildura sex pest who was out on bail for a sexual assault when he violated a child was been jailed to a minimum of three years and 11 months.

Cameron O’Brien, 29, was sentenced in the County Court in August after pleading guilty to sexual assault and penetration of a child under 16.

O’Brien was arrested and remanded shortly after assaulting his first victim in mid-2019, the court was told.

However, O’Brien was bailed and on the streets when he sexually penetrated his child victim more than 12 months later.

O’Brien, a boilermaker and dirt bike enthusiast, bail was eventually revoked in February 2021.

In her victim impact statement, the first victim said she felt “embarrassed and ashamed” after O’Brien assaulted her.

Judge Frances Hogan said O’Brien’s offending against one victim was “brazen in nature”.

O’Brien, who was made a registered sex offender for life, was jailed for a maximum five years and three months.

Darryl Nicholson

Woorinen South man Darryl Nicholson was sentenced to three years jail in August after he indecently assaulted a child over a seven-year period in the 1970s.

He pleaded guilty to charges of indecent assault and buggery of a person under 14 in the Mildura County Court.

Nicholson’s assaults began on his victim when he was 14 and his victim was five.

But the attacks lasted years. They came to light in 2019 when his victim made statements to police.