Serial child sex predator created secret social media profile

Child sex predator Christopher Winters, who molested young boys, had social media accounts in breach of the Child Protection Register, a court heard.

EXCLUSIVE

A notorious child sex predator secretly joined an online social network site and had social media profiles under different names and multiple email addresses, a court has heard.

Convicted paedophile Christopher Paul Winters, 52, whose record of sex offences against young boys goes back to the 1980s, breached the Child Protection Register within days of signing it.

Details have emerged as Winters successfully claimed he is too poor to pay an $1100 court fine for failing to report he had joined online social networking site Meetup.

The 52-year-old serial sex offender, who is paid a disability pension for “psychological and physical issues”, lodged his court severity objection appeal using Legal Aid.

Winters is infamous as one of NSW’s first paedophiles to be held in prison after his sentence ended for failing to address his offending behaviour, under new child sex offender laws.

In the 1980s, in the rural town of Cootamundra, Winters twice broke into children’s bedrooms, including that of two boys aged five and seven, by removing flyscreens from their windows.

In 1998, he was jailed for nine years for 13 sex offences against nine boys aged between eight and 15 years in the town of Wagga Wagga.

The offences included two counts of sexual intercourse with a boy under the age of 10, four acts of indecency with a victim under 10, three indecent assaults of boys under 10 and sexual intercourse with a child aged under 14.

Court documents seen by news.com.au reveal Winters, who lives in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, has Skype under an online pseudonym, four email accounts and is a registered sex offender in NSW at least until 2027.

Under the Child Protection Offenders Registration Act, Winters must report any affiliation with a club or organisation which has child membership or child participation “including but not limited to RSL clubs, sporting organisations, church groups, libraries”.

Winters, who belongs to the social club of a well-known Sydney hotel, handwrote “yes” to the above reporting rule on his declaration.

Serial child sex predator Christopher Winters (left) leaves court with lawyer James Lang (right). Picture: Candace Sutton

He also wrote “yes” to a requirement he tell police within seven days of any contact with a child including exchanging contact details, attempting to befriend or physical contact.

This meant “touching or in close proximity” plus oral communication “in person, via phone or electronic means such as the internet or written communication”.

Winters signed on with Meetup in the same week he signed a declaration he would abide by the register’s reporting rules.

After his conviction in Waverley Local Court where he was fined $1100, Winters appealed in the Sydney District Court this week in a bid to have the conviction and fine overturned.

The sex offender’s appeal has taken more than a year to be heard because of “difficulties” with his obtaining Legal Aid, lawyer James Lang told the court.

Mr Lang tried to claim to District Court Judge Mark Williams that two female detectives who charged the sex offender did not file a truthful account of their interview with Winters.

“It factually isn’t a complete and honest account of what went on,” Mr Lang told Judge Williams.

But Judge Williams refused to accept Winters’ appeal against his failing to report conviction.

He described the lawyers in Winters conviction as “very experienced” and Magistrate Michael Barko’s judgment as “one of the most detailed … in magnitude in a busy court that I have seen”.

Mr Lang told Judge Williams that Winters was applying for the fine to be vacated because he was on the disability support pension and owed $15,000 in restitution to Victims Services NSW.

Asked by the judge how Winters was entitled to the pension, Mr Lang said a combination of “psychological, depression and physical issues” made up the “global threshold” to qualify.

Serial child sex predator Christopher Winters molested boys as young as eight in the NSW town of Wagga Wagga. Picture: Wikimedia

Winters interrupted his lawyer to add that he had an intellectual disability which Mr Lang described as “mild”.

Dismissing Winters’ appeal against his conviction, Judge Williams said he would remain under a good behaviour bond until May.

In 2007, Winters failed in a bid to be released from prison after his nine-year sentence for child sex offences expired.

Then NSW Attorney-General John Hatzistergos held Winters in custody after a judge ruled he used “increasingly sophisticated” methods to lure children.

Justice Virginia Bell said Winters took advantage of children’s vulnerability and enticed them inside his home with offers to use his computer or smoke cigarettes.

She concluded that he would be a danger to the community if released from prison, where he had taken himself off anti-libidinal medicine because he didn’t like the side effects.

During Winters’ incarceration, then NSW Corrective Services Commissioner Ron Woodham reported allegations of “sexually predatory behaviour” toward younger male inmates.

Winters denied the behaviour, but failed to finish a prison sex offenders’ treatment program

and was at one point described as “unmotivated to address his sexual offending behaviour”.

In 2007, Mr Hatzistergos said prison psychologists had indicated Winters “posed a continuing threat to the community (for) his sex offending” against victims including “very young” children.

A psychologist assessed Winters as “high risk for sexual violence”.

However, Winters was later released from prison after his Continuing Detention Order expired.

Judge Williams ordered Winters continue mental health treatment with a Sydney psychologist.

Winters’ Child Protection Register form states his reporting period is “likely to be extended by any period I am in custody if I am found guilty of another registrable offence” beyond 2027.