Pedophile who broke into homes dressed as Batman on new charges

One of Queensland’s most dangerous sex offenders, who masqueraded as a superhero and broke into homes to abuse boys, has re-emerged in court despite decades of “supervision”.

A convicted child predator is back in jail after being found with pedophile porn.

A dangerous, predatory child sex offender who once masqueraded as a superhero when he broke into homes to abuse boys, has decades later, been jailed again this time for possessing child exploitation material.

Sentencing Judge Jeff Clarke said it seemed to him that “hope for rehabilitation has been lost” for John Alexander Doyle, 64.

Doyle, who fronted Rockhampton District Court this week for possessing child exploitation material in February 2024, is the subject of an interim detention order under the Dangerous Prisoner (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003 (Qld) after the Attorney-General applied to the Supreme Court for the order last year.

Doyle pleaded guilty to the possession charge which Crown prosecutor Cassandra Nitz said entailed him possessing 30 INTERPOL category one files, six which were unique and all featured boys aged five to seven with their genitalia exposed.

Judge Clarke said Doyle had a collection of 25,000 files of which 7000 were unique but not all were illegal.

“Obviously you are completely absorbed by this filth,” he said to Doyle.

Doyle’s collection was discovered when police searched his Berserker unit on February 1, 2024.

A sentence of six-months prison wholly suspended and operational for 18 months he had been handed on July 8, 2022, for his sixth contravention of his sex offenders supervision requirements had expired on January 9, 2024.

Ms Nitz said Doyle’s five-page Queensland criminal history showed his last entry was for 10 contraventions of the supervision requirements when he was sentenced in Rockhampton Magistrates Court on March 11, 2024 to nine months’ prison.

The decision handed down by Justice Graeme Crow to approve the Attorney-General’s application in February 2024 outlined Doyle’s criminal history and referred to a psychology report about Doyle’s diagnoses.

The Gladstone-born offender was first convicted on February 20, 1987, and sentenced to 10 years in jail for a series of offences during which he wore a Batman cape and mask, broke into houses at night, bound young boys and sexually abused them.

The offences were committed against seven males aged 10-20 years of age.

Doyle was first granted parole for his original child sex crimes on July 24, 1992.

He was then convicted on June 17, 1999, for 44 offences including supplying drugs to minors, deprivation of liberty, stealing, fraud and assault.

Due to being on parole when he committed offences between June 1996 and January 1997, he was sentenced to serve out the remainder of his sentence.

The sentencing judge at the time said Doyle had “befriended the boys for personal gratification and some social support but noted that the conduct was quite predatory, and he was seeking opportunities for sexual gratification from the youths.”

According to the court documents, Doyle was again eligible for parole on July 20, 2010, after serving his entire initial sentence but the parole board rejected his application under the Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act.

This was because his mother, with whom he proposed to live, was reluctant to acknowledge his offending.

He was eventually released and returned to custody on July 19, 2011, after breaching a requirement of the supervision order that he knowingly associate or have contact with anyone convicted of a sexual offence against a child.

Doyle was released again on January 30, 2012 but was returned to custody in November that year after three breaches of the supervision order.

“Those requirements were that he not collect or retain material containing images of children and that he dispose of such material if directed to do so; that he not commit an indictable offence; and that he not access pornographic images of children’.

Doyle was next released from custody on November 3, 2014.

According to the psychology report tendered in court documents, Doyle has been diagnosed as having multiple sexual psychological disorders, including pedophilia, along with anti-personality traits but was not considered to be a psychopath.

This week, the District Court heard that regards of what sentence he got for the possession of the child exploitation material, it was up to the Supreme Court to decide when Doyle would be released from custody, with the next Supreme Court hearing scheduled for November 2025 after assessments in August.

Defence barrister Tristan Carlos said Doyle’s parents separated when he was five-years-old and he was exposed to significant alcohol abuse during his childhood and Doyle himself was alcohol dependent for about 30 years.

He said Doyle left home when he was 24 years old and had worked in manual labour until sciatica pain became “quite problematic”.

Mr Carlos said Doyle was his stepfather’s carer from 2018 to 2023, assisting him in a physical capacity until his death.

Judge Clarke said Doyle had been subject to the sex offenders’ supervision order since 2010, and apart from a conviction for possessing child exploitation material in 2014, the majority of Doyle’s offending since 2010 has been for contravening the supervision order.

“It seems to me that hope for rehabilitation is lost,” he said, describing Doyle’s history as “woeful”.

He sentenced Doyle to two years prison to be suspended after serving 403 days with an operational period of three years and declared 403 days presentence custody as time already served.

Originally published as Pedophile who broke into homes dressed as Batman on new charges