Man who abducted six-year-old had history of watching little boys at Casuarina Square, court hears

AN INTELLECTUALLY disabled teenager who abducted a child from a shopping centre had a history of absconding from his carers to perv on little boys, a court has heard

AN INTELLECTUALLY disabled teenager who abducted a six-year-old boy from Casuarina Square had a history of absconding from his carers to perv on little boys, a court has heard.

The 19-year-old, who cannot be named, was found not guilty by reason of mental impairment of aggravated assault and deprivation of liberty following the incident in December 2019.

The Supreme Court heard the little boy was at the BCC cinemas with his two sisters and their 15-year-old babysitter when he went into the toilets.

The man approached him as he was standing at the washbasin, dragged him into one of the cubicles and locked the door, telling the child to be quiet and trying to lift up his shirt.

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The boy was “somehow” able to escape and ran out into the foyer crying, where he told his sisters and the babysitter what happened and pointed the man out to security guards who arrested him.

At the time, the man was subject to an adult guardianship order which required him to be under one-on-one care at all times but was away from his “care placement” unsupervised.

A report tendered to the court revealed the man suffered from a “cognitive impairment as a consequence of traumatic maltreatment over an extended period of time during his developmental years, including emotional, physical and sexual abuse”.

After the incident at Casuarina Square, the man’s supervision was increased to two-on-one at all times but he was allowed to continue to access the internet on his phone until late last year.

“That internet access was revoked in December 2020 when it was found that the supervised person had been taking screenshots of pictures of children from other people’s Facebook accounts and posting them on his own Facebook account with sexually lewd captions,” the report reads.

Since that time he has also continued to attempt to abscond from his carers “on numerous occasions”.

In ordering the man now be housed at the Complex Behaviour Unit at Holtze Prison, Chief Justice Michael Grant revealed the teenager had admitted to having “previously watched little boys at the Casuarina Square Shopping Centre, obviously with sexual interest” and has “a preoccupation with schools and playgrounds”.

“He gravitates to them and becomes fixated by them and staff are unable to redirect his attention,” he said.

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“It is not enough to say that on most occasions the supervised person is located a relatively short time after he has absconded — that is as much good fortune as anything else — every occasion on which he does abscond presents a serious risk of sexual predation to children in the community.

“Although of relatively short duration, and even allowing for the supervised person’s cognitive condition, circumstances involving the restraint of a six-year-old child in a public toilet cubicle are horrific and such as to shock the public conscience.”

The man returns to court for a review of his custodial supervision order in November.

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