Queensland Police to boost resources to monitor child-sex offenders

Queensland police have confirmed only 22 specialist officers keep watch on almost 2700 child-sex offenders.

Rapist Robert John Fardon is now living in the community.

Queensland police have confirmed only 22 specialist officers keep watch on almost 2700 child-sex offenders, but have defended the monitoring program as they reveal new teams of behavioural analysts, psychologists and covert investigators will boost their ranks.

Doubts have been raised by the state opposition about the monitoring of convicted child-sex ­offenders following the full community release of serial rapist Robert John Fardon.

Fardon, 70, is being closely watched by police after a Supreme Court judge last week rejected a state government bid to extend a supervision order that had dictated the terms by which he could live in the community. One of the state’s most notorious offenders, Fardon had raped a 12-year-old girl at gunpoint and within a month of being released on parole he had raped and bashed another woman. New laws, introduced on the eve of his supervision order expiring, made him a “reportable” offender.

He is required to tell police where he lives and to detail his contact with children, phone and internet connections, social media accounts and passwords.

Opposition MP and former ­detective Daniel Purdie said the Sunshine Coast had one specialist officer to watch over about 130 reportable offenders. Another district, Capricornia, had one officer for 180 reportable ­offenders. “Our CPOR (child protection offender registry) officers are overstretched and under-resourced,” said Mr Purdie, who worked in the Child Protection and Investigation Unit on the Sunshine Coast for almost a decade until he became an MP in 2017.

Queensland police confirmed 22 specialist officers monitored 2654 registered offenders being managed in the community. Those officers were supported by police attached to separate child protection units across the state.

“Complementing these staff with a further set of specialist ­resources is ongoing,” police said. “A team of behavioural analysts and psychologists will be appointed to assist the team who currently conduct the risk assessment ­activities. A further group of covert officers to complement this strength has been approved.”

Mr Purdie said specialist officers lacked cars and were effectively desk-bound. Reporting had become an “honesty system”.

“What they really need is more (specialist) investigators in each district, out in the communities, trying to get a better handle on the thousands of sex offenders we’ve got at large in the community,” he said.

Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington and the Liberal National Party’s police spokesman, Trevor Watts, also raised concerns about the level of police monitoring.

“Surely 22 police officers can’t keep track of more than 2000 serious sex offenders across Queensland,” Ms Frecklington said.

Labor’s new laws mean child sex offenders coming off dangerous prisoner orders are automatically monitored by police. Fardon would previously have escaped further monitoring because his last offence against a child was decades ago.

Police Minister Mark Ryan said the government had given police an extra $25 million for ­“enhanced monitoring and surveillance capacity” at the request of the police commissioner.

The police statement said: “Our staffing model is constantly monitored to ensure we are meeting not only the expectations of the community, but our legislative obligations set out by the Act.”