Ellendale residents in legal bid to have say on sex offenders living in community

RESIDENTS fighting a plan to house sex offenders at Ellendale want laws on community consultation changed.

Tassie towns Ellendale in the Derwent valley

RESIDENTS fighting a plan to house sex offenders at Ellendale want laws on community consultation changed.

The Freedom Centre, which has a history of helping pris­oners reintegrate into society, has bought a house in the Derwent Valley township to house three elderly sex ­offenders.

One of the men is a convicted paedophile who committed nearly 25 sex offences against 15 boys mostly under 17 between 1970 and 1976 when he worked for Burnie City Council.

The home was bought without community consultation.

Ellendale resident Tony Donaghy said the community should have been given more say.

“They have bought the property with the express purpose of housing people that are a severe chance of reoffending,” Mr Donaghy said.

“If there was a process of community consultation they would have real­ised the problems they are foisting on the community.”

Mr Donaghy is part of a committee formed at Tuesday’s fiery Town Hall meeting.

ELLENDALE RESIDENTS RALLY

More than 100 people turned out – about 20 per cent of Ellendale’s population — and most were opposed to the home.

Mr Donaghy said the group would lobby the State Government to change planning laws to allow community consultation when facilities like the Freedom Centre were set up.

However, not everyone was unhappy with the new development.

Centre dir­ector Elizabeth Coleman said at least one local family had offered support for the project.

Ms Coleman said the community meeting was confrontational and unproductive.

“It was very frightening, it was very abusive,” she said.

“We didn’t get a chance to talk about how we work or what we do.”

Residents have questioned why the centre chose an area where there is no police station and no public transport except the school bus.

Ms Coleman said the property offered privacy with no neighbours and had a big garden for the men to work in.

She said the child sex offender committed his crimes more than 40 years ago and wanted to get on with his life in “peace and quiet”.

“They need to have an open mind, people do change.”

[e-mail]