As child killer set free ‘risks remain’

Michael Guider will walk free despite even the judge who released him admitting he could reoffend.

Convicted pedophile and killer Michael Anthony Guider.

When NSW’s most notorious serial pedophile and child killer Michael Anthony Guider walks free on Thursday, even the judge who released him admits there remains an “undoubted risk” he could reoffend.

In his judgment on Tuesday, NSW Supreme Court judge Richard Button conceded he was “not completely convinced” by Guider’s claim his sexual attraction to children had disappeared during his two decades in jail.

MORE: The fight to keep Samantha Knight killer in jail | Victim breaks her silence 

The effectiveness of the anti-libidinal drugs, he said, was also “unclear” given that Guider’s sexual disorder was “complex’ and not solely driven by sexual urges.

Samantha Knight disappeared in 1986.

His decision, he said, had ultimately been guided by the unanimous assessment of three psychiatrists and psychologists who had agreed that while there would always remain was a risk of Guider reoffending, that risk could be managed as long as “a very stringent and lengthy regime of supervision and control” was imposed.

What the judgment did not refer to was the devastating revelation Guider made when he was first assessed in prison by psychologist, Dr Janet Devlin, in 2002. Dr Devlin’s report — which was submitted at his sentencing — said it was Guider’s relationship with his mother that had “played the most significant role in his deviant sexual behaviour”.

She said Guider had become very “distressed’ when he told her how his mother, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, had abandoned him at the age of 11. He was then placed in boys homes where Guider quickly began sexually abusing other boys.

According to Dr Devlin, Guider’s relationship with his mother had left him “psycho-sexually impaired”, gave him “a sense of childlike specialness, even as an adult” and made him feel “inadequate in company of adults”.

The decision to release Guider from jail after 23 years follows a protracted legal challenge by NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman to keep him behind bars after his sentence expired in June.

Guider, 68, killed nine-year-old Samantha Knight after he snatched her off a street in Sydney’s Bondi Beach in August 1986 while she was walking to a shop to buy pencils.

By the time he was ­arrested for Samantha’s killing in 2001 Guider was already in jail for sex offences against 13 young boys and girls, committed between 1980 and 1996. Guider had taken photos of his victims, drugging some of them with soft drinks spiked with Temazepam before raping them and taking photos as they slept.

Tess Knight, the mother of Samantha Knight, outside the Supreme Court. Picture: Jane Dempster

It was Guider’s confession to a cellmate that ultimately led to his conviction for manslaughter in 2002 after he claimed he had accidentally killed Samantha after giving her an extra dose of sleeping pills after she started to wake up while he was sexually assaulting her.

Guider has always refused to give any details of what he did with Samantha’s body. But he now insists he didn’t kill Samantha and says he will deny it “to his dying day”.

Justice Button said on Tuesday it was “out of the question” to release Guider into the community without imposing a strict five-year extended supervision order (ESO) with 56 conditions.

These include 24/7 electronic monitoring, a daily curfew and a mandatory “anti-libidinal” drug regime to reduce his sex drive. Guider will also be forbidden to change his name or his appearance.

Samantha Knight’s mother, Tess, broke down told outside the court, telling reporters: “I’m not disappointed I am angry … I’m shaking inside.”

Lisa Giles, who was abused by “Uncle Mick” Guider between the ages of five to 11 three decades ago, said: “Hold your children close. A child molester and child killer will be released among us this week … it is not over. He will reoffend.”

NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman has called for “urgent” advice on whether there are grounds to appeal Justice Button’s decision.