Marged Goode: Melbourne psychologist disqualified for ‘disgraceful’ act

A respected psychologist showed “extremely poor judgment” when she gave a dangerous sex offender patient with a sexual attraction to cats a book about animal reproduction, a tribunal has found.

The "Village of the Damned" facility at Corella Place in Ararat is home to some of Victoria’s worst sex offenders.

One of Australia’s most respected psychologists has been banned from treating patients, and is unlikely to ever return to work, after she admitted to providing a dangerous, cat-obsessed sex offender with books about animal reproduction.

Dr Marged Goode, 77, of Mount Waverley who was one of Australia’s foremost experts in Autism Spectrum Disorder, was last week disqualified from practising as a psychologist following a hearing before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Dr Goode had long treated the dangerous gender-fluid sex offender, whose name is suppressed, in an attempt to cure their “sexual attraction to cats”.

The sex offender was jailed in 2014, and has been detained under court order at the prison-like facility for serious sex offenders at Corella Place in Ararat.

The facility, dubbed “Village of the Damned”, it notoriously mismanaged and is the subject of a number of ongoing coronial probes following a spate of drug overdose deaths.

The offender has been detained at Corella Place, otherwise known as "Village of the Damned".

The tribunal heard Dr Goode was aware the offender had “sexually touched her cat” during an early therapy session at her home, but downplayed the significance of his behaviour.

Dr Goode incorrectly told another psychologist the offender’s behaviour was “distasteful” but not “necessarily illegal”.

Bestiality is an offence in all states of Australia.

A fellow psychologist gave evidence that Dr Goode’s attitude towards the offender undermined Corrections Victoria’s goal of reducing “the risk that they posed to children and animals (particularly cats)”.

The tribunal heard Dr Goode formed the view that the offender’s “attraction to cats was the same as adults being attracted to adults, and that he was not attracted to all cats”.

At a treatment session in Melbourne in 2019, while the offender was out on day release, Dr Goode gifted them animal behaviour textbooks, which featured “a large amount of content describing in detail the courtship rituals for animals”, including confronting pictures.

The prisoner inappropriately touched his psychologist's cat.

An expert witness told the tribunal “the naivety and lack of objectivity demonstrated by a person as allegedly eminent in her field as I am told Goode is, is a matter of such concern that it raises questions about her professional judgment”.

Lawyers for the Psychology Board of Australia said Dr Goode had shown “extremely poor judgment” in relation to the patient, in particular by making comments comparing bestiality to homosexuality.

A panel of Tribunal members found Dr Goode had engaged in “disgraceful conduct”, cancelled her registration, and disqualified her from reapplying to practice as a psychologist until 2028.

“It is an ignominious end for a respected practitioner who has been known for her significant expertise …” the Tribunal members said.