Gympie court: Triple child rapist, would-be killer walks

Molester released after time served, but with another 18 months hanging over his head for five years

Ross William Thompson walked from Gympie District Court.today, but he will not be a free man for another five years. Picture: Troy Jegers

CONVICTED rapist, repeat child sex offender and would-be wife-killer, Ross William Thompson, was released from Gympie District Court late this morning.

But the Calico Creek molester he did not quite walk free

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Thompson, 45, yesterday entered a late guilty plea to charges alleging he raped and later sexually assaulted an underage girl at Kandanga in 2011 and 2012, before molesting her again nearly five years later, at Calico Creek.

Crown prosecutor Aleksandra Nikolic today told the court other offences recorded in Thompson's criminal history included sexual offending against a nine-year-old boy, for which he was sentenced in Emerald District Court.

That had involved showing the boy pornographic magazines and "interfering with his penis.”

"Other than that, he was before the Brisbane Supreme Court in 1999 for attempting to procure the commission of a criminal offence, which was murder.

"On that occasion he received a three-year suspended term of improsonment. It was in relation to attempting to hire a hit-man to murder his ex-partner,” Ms Nikolic said.

The killing "did not eventuate,” she said.

Then in 2008, he had been dealt with in Maroochydore District Court for serious sex offences including the rape and indecent treatment of two sisters, aged 5 and 6.

Released from jail on December 21, 2010, he was still on parole when he committed the two Kandanga offences before the court this week.

Thompson had been in custody since April 28, 2017 on those charges, making a total of 894 days already served, Ms Nikolic said.

The matter had come to light because a friend of the girl's mother had passed on information that the girl had told her son of being "sexually offended against.”

The first of the latest offences occurred in November 2011, when Thompson was giving the girl a lift and stopped in a park, where he "held her with one arm around her waist and placed the other down the front of her pants, inside her underwear.

"He then penetrated her vagina with his finger. And that constitutes Count One of rape.

”She pushed his hand away and he stopped.

"A couple of months later, at the (girl's) house, he came into the kitchen.

"On that occasion he tried to put his hand down the front of her shirt and the front of her pants and she grabbed him and stopped him by grabbing his arm.

"He then reached down and rubbed her crocth on the outside of her pants.”

"The next offence occurs in 2016, and that involved him placing his hand under her shirt and inside her bra and that is the count of sexual assault (at Calico Creek).”

Judge Glen Cash said it was an unusual case, complicated by issues of parole, suspended sentences and the principle that sentences should not be "crushing.”

Ms Nikolic said the court would also need to consider two years and five months already served.

Defence barrister Simone Bain said she could not take issue with the suggested sentencing approach.

Judge Cash described Thompson's record as "significant and relevant.”

"Your offending can only be described as appalling,” the judge told Thompson.

But time already served would be probably more than the actual period of custody which the court might order.

He ordered that Thompson be jailed for a further 18 months, suspended immediately for five years.

Originally published as Gympie court: Triple child rapist, would-be killer walks