‘Village of the Damned’: Inside Victoria’s most notorious paedophile prison

IT IS home to some of Australia’s worst child sex offenders who are at high risk of reoffending. But they’re not locked away from society forever.

Child rapist Andrew Darling has escaped from the "Village of the Damned." Corella Place Ararat home to some of Vic's worst sex offenders.

THEY are the neighbours no one wants to have.

But convicted paedophiles and sex offenders who have finished serving prison sentences have to go somewhere and the reality is they live all around us.

In Victoria, those deemed by authorities to pose an unacceptable risk to the community are placed on orders under the state’s Serious Sex Offenders Monitoring Act and are condemned to the Village of the Damned.

They are driven directly from prison in Ararat, to the nearby compound, officially known as Corella Place where they are ordered to live among their own.

The supervised living quarters boasts one, two and three bedroom houses and is home to some of Victoria’s most dangerous sex offenders.

But the purpose-built facility isn’t surrounded by barbed wire fences or armed guards.

Instead, inmates are monitored with GPS ankle bracelets and can only leave the grounds under

guarded supervision.

A strict curfew is imposed on the criminals.

Notorious residents at the facility, which was established under the supervision scheme in 2005, have included Robin Fletcher and child rapist Andrew Darling.

Fletcher sexually assaulted multiple teenage girls and blamed it on witchcraft. Darling later broke his ankle bracelet and escaped from the facility until he was recaptured.

Today, the Village of the Damned is home to more than 55 residents.

Those ordered to live there are required to attend mandatory counselling sessions and take part in rehabilitation programs.

Failure to comply is a criminal offence and carries a maximum five-year jail sentence.

But they’re not locked away forever with most inmates eventually released back into society, one by one.

For some, the danger they pose to society is merely put on hold until they are set free.

Sean Christian Price, 32, is one of the facilities’ inmates who was “let go” too soon.

Within months of being released, Price murdered Masa Vukotic, 17, in a frenzied and random stabbing attack at Doncaster Park in March last year.

Masa Vukotic was murdered by Sean Price in a random and frenzied stabbing attack.

Sean Price was convicted of murdering Masa Vukotic.

Yesterday, Price was sentenced to a minimum non-parole period of 38 years jail.

Price pleaded guilty to murder, rape, robbery and attempted theft after a crime spree last March in which he stabbed Ms Vukotic to death while she was on her evening walk, then raped a woman.

“She’s like started talking to a bird like f***ing Snow White,” Price told police.

“I just had to kill her.”

Victorian Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry on Friday said he had tried, but failed, to understand the catastrophic decision to release Price, a convicted rapist, into the community in 2014 after he was placed on a 10-year supervision order in 2012.

“In a catastrophic example of mismanagement, whether on the part of the Department of Corrections or the Adult Parole Board, the decision was made to release you into the community and then the order ceased to have any protective event,” Justice Lasry said on Friday.

“You were given the freedom to commit these offences in circumstances where that should never have occurred.

“How you were permitted to be released into the community ... is astonishing.”

Price had been detained in the Village of the Damned over prior convictions, including sex offences against seven girls and women aged between 13 and 45 in 2002 and 2003.

He was supposed to be under a supervision order and subsequent electronic monitoring at the time of Ms Vukotic’s murder.

At Price’s pre-sentencing hearing in December last year, the Supreme Court was told multiple experts had warned authorities that he was dangerous, even after he was released from the Village of the Damned back into the community on a supervision order.

Corella Place.

The court heard Price, of Melbourne’s western suburbs, should never have been allowed to roam free in the community.

Even if he did take the medication doctor’s pleaded with him to take, he would still be a menace, particularly to women, prosecutors claimed.

But when he smashed up some cars and threatened staff at the Village of the Damned, the Adult Parole Board cut him loose into the community.

Crown Prosecutor Michele Williams, QC, struggled to explain how or why Price was allowed to leave the complex to live in a unit in Melbourne’s west.

“It’s alarming, but the authorities may have had no choice,’’ she said. “Maybe there were other options that weren’t taken by the authorities?”

Ms Williams said Corella Place deemed him to be a danger to its staff.

“Why should they take him there,’’ she said. “Ultimately he was released.’’

Ms Vukotic’s tragic death prompted an unprecedented move to recall serial sex offenders who had been allowed back into the community on supervision after serving their time.

In the months following the teen’s death, authorities reportedly rounded up eight other high-risk offenders and moved them back to the Village of the Damned, which recently underwent a multi-million dollar renovation to accommodate an additional 20 beds.

About half of the 120 people on Victoria’s Serious Sex Offender detention and supervision orders are currently detained in the Village of the Damned. More than a dozen are in prison and the rest reside in the community under supervision.

The Village of the Damned.