Australia’s youngest child killer ‘SLD’ released from jail

Australia’s youngest child killer has walked free from jail following a failed bid to keep him behind bars.

Australia's youngest convicted murderer known as SLD, pictured in the red check flannel shirt, walks out of jail on a supervised order. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Australia’s youngest killer was released from a Sydney prison on Saturday following a failed bid to keep him locked up for another year.

The man, known only as SLD, was a child himself when he took the life of Courtney Morley-Clarke, 3, on the NSW Central Coast in January 2001.

SLD, then aged 13, pulled the young girl from her bed in the middle of the night, stabbed her through the heart with a steak knife and left her body in long grass, courts were told.

He spent more than 20 years in jail before he was released as a high risk offender on an extended supervision order in 2023.

Child killer SLD leaves prison on Saturday morning. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

SLD murdered a three-year-old child. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

But one month later he breached the order when he spoke to a woman and child at Bulli Beach near Wollongong.

He was arrested and sentenced to 13 months jail for failing to comply with the terms of the order.

The NSW Government applied for a continued detention order for another 12 months when SLD’s sentence expired in December last year.

However, Supreme Court Justice Mark Ierance dismissed the state’s request to continue the detention order.

The state’s barrister Gillian Maghony told the court on Tuesday, forensic psychologists found SLD had developed an “anti-social belief system” from growing up in a custodial setting and was a “complex picture.”

NSW murder victim Courtney Morley-Clarke, 3.

Another psychologist’s report submitted to the court, found that while SLD’s risk of committing further serious violent or sexual offence was in the higher ranges, he held a firm view the risk could be managed through an extensive supervision order.

Justice Ierance said while there was evidence SLD posed a risk to the community, he could not be satisfied to a high degree of a probability that he posed an unacceptable risk of committing further offences.

On Saturday morning, the 38-year-old walked out of prison.

He gave a weak smile to cameras before entering into a car.

Originally published as Australia’s youngest child killer ‘SLD’ released from jail