Human catastrophe: detainee on sex charges, Labor under pressure after High Court ruling
A sex offender labelled a ‘danger to the community’ by the judge who sentenced him allegedly indecently assaulted a woman just weeks after being freed from immigration detention.
A known sex offender who was labelled a “danger to the community” by the judge who sentenced him has allegedly indecently assaulted a woman in a South Australian hotel, just weeks after being released from immigration detention by the High Court’s contentious landmark “NZYQ” decision.
With two former detainees arrested over the weekend, the Coalition seized on the incidents as a “catastrophic failure,” accused Labor of failing to keep the community safe and escalated its calls for Anthony Albanese to sack his Home Affairs Minister, Clare O’Neil, and Immigration Minister, Andrew Giles.
The arrests come as Labor on Monday unveiled its proposed preventative detention legislation aimed at protecting the public from the dangerous non-citizens who had been released into the community, although constitutional expert at the University of NSW, George Williams, warned the new laws were “likely to be challenged in the High Court.”
The Opposition has also challenged the government to say how many of the 148 dangerous non citizens released into the community it would make applications for under its proposed preventative detention regime, after Peter Dutton suggested it could be as few as four people.
A 65-year-old convicted sex predator with a record of attacking elderly women in their own homes, Aliyawar Yawari, appeared in the Adelaide Magistrate’s Court on two counts of indecent assault on Monday, just three weeks after being released from detention following the High Court decision.
Yawari did not apply for bail and was remanded in custody until next year. One of his former victims was bashed in the neck with a walking stick after being indecently assaulted.
Just before 10pm on Saturday December 2, police were called to the Pavlos Motel on Main North Road in Pooraka in northern Adelaide after a report a woman had been indecently assaulted by a guest.
Following inquiries, police arrested Yawari. Guri Bhullar, who works at the front desk of the motel, confirmed to The Australian that the man arrested by police was Yawari, that he had been wearing an ankle bracelet and had been staying at the motel since November 27.
He also said the woman who Yawari allegedly assaulted had only stayed at the motel for one night.
“He was in the motel. We dealt with him directly,” Mr Bhullar said. “I was in the office and that woman called the police and the police said he assaulted her. They started collecting finger prints and that’s when I knew something happened.”
The Australian previously reported that Yawari had fled his home of Afghanistan after both his father and brother were killed by the Taliban. Yawari eventually made it to Australia in 2010 and found a job at a meatworks in Bordertown, South Australia.
Another former detainee who was released into the community was also arrested by NSW police at about 3pm on Saturday afternoon in the western Sydney suburb of Merrylands after the police had stopped to make “unrelated inquiries”.
The man was arrested and taken to Granville Police Station, where he was charged with possession of a prohibited drug after he allegedly threw a number of resealable bags on the ground containing a substance believed to be cannabis. He appeared at Parramatta Local Court on Sunday.
The Opposition Leader said on Monday the Prime Minister’s first responsibility was to keep Australians safe, warning that the Albanese government had “done the complete opposite”.
“It is the greatest failure in the Migration portfolios since boats arrived and Labor lost control of our borders when they were last in power,” Mr Dutton said. “It’s time for the Prime Minister to show strength and sack these two ministers.” Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan told The Australian: “This is a catastrophic failure.”
He said that, to restore trust with the Australian public, both Ms O’Neil and Mr Giles should resign.
A government spokesman told The Australian the Opposition had an opportunity to back up its rhetoric by supporting the government’s preventative detention model this week in the parliament.
“They only have one chance to back up their talk by working constructively with the government to pass the legislation this week.”
Mr Dutton also wrote to the Prime Minister on Monday urging him to make the preventative detention regime an agenda item at Wednesday’s national cabinet meeting to ensure the states understood their role in upholding the proposed new system.
Under new legislation proposed by Labor,Mr Giles could apply to a court for a new “community safety detention order” for serious offenders who are both non-citizens and must be released into the community because they have no chance of being resettled elsewhere in the foreseeable future.
Mr Giles or his delegate could apply to the Supreme Court of a state or territory for either a “community safety detention order” or a “community safety supervision order” for individuals who are deemed to be “serious offenders.”
Both kinds of orders – referred to as “Community Safety Orders” (CSO) – can last up to three years but will be reviewed annually. Once the three years has expired, the Immigration Minister can again make an application to the court for another order.
A “serious offender” is defined in the proposed legislation as someone who has been convicted overseas of a violent or sexual offence punishable by imprisonment for life or for a maximum period of seven years and which would also constitute an offence within Australia.
The legislation would also capture someone convicted in Australia of a violent or sexual offence punishable by imprisonment for life or a maximum period of seven years.
The kinds of offences covered would include actions which resulted in the loss of a person’s life; the risk of loss of life; serious personal injury; sexual assault; sexual assault involving a person under 16-years of age; the production, publication, possession or sale of child abuse material; and the commissioning of a sexual offence against someone under the age of 16. When making community safety orders, a court must consider any “treatment or rehabilitation programs” which the offender has completed. For detention orders, the court must also be “satisfied to a high degree of probability, on the basis of admissible evidence, that the offender poses an unacceptable risk of seriously harming the community by committing a serious violent or sexual offence.”
Government sources confirmed the vast majority of the 148 people released so far following the High Court’s NZYQ case were individuals who could be classed as “serious offenders.”
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