By Perry Duffin
The infamous North Shore Rapist collects a $1300 taxpayer funded pension, re-enacted an attack with a sex worker, and approaches women on the street where he remains a “high risk” of reoffending – but still wants his electronic ankle monitor to come off early.
However, the women who survived his attacks have warned Graham James Kay “will never be rehabilitated”, and in powerful statements urged the court to protect victims and not the serial rapist.
Graham James Kay, the North Shore Rapist, wants his ankle monitor off after 18 months. A court has heard he remains “high risk” of attacking more women.
The 73-year-old was publicly unmasked earlier this month after the Herald mounted a legal challenge against a suppression order on his identity since 2020.
It was revealed Kay, who spent two decades in prison for a series of violent rapes in the 1990s, had returned to the community last September despite reoffending in 2018 and 2022.
Kay was expected to front the NSW Supreme Court on Friday to debate the terms of an extended supervision order to keep him on a short leash for three years – but dialled in instead.
It meant he did not have to face two of the women he attacked in the 1990s.
“I was fearful I was going to die at the hands of the offender and would not wish this on anyone else,” one woman told the court, recalling the moment Kay leapt from the shadows and put a blade to her throat in 1997.
“He dragged me from behind down a tunnel, pushed a knife into my throat, gagged me and raped me,” the second woman said.
One woman said she looks for her attacker in the faces of strangers on the street. The other pleaded with the court to keep Kay on a strict monitoring regime – an electronic ankle bracelet and a planned schedule of movements.
Kay’s lawyer asked for the ankle monitor to be removed after 18 months, angering the survivors, who told the court “life changed forever” when the serial rapist stalked and attacked them.
Graham Kay in 2018.
“Graham James Kay will never be rehabilitated and no matter his age he must always be monitored,” one said.
“He will always be a danger to the community, particularly to young women.”
Two psychologists told the court Kay still poses a “high risk” of reoffending despite being in his 70s. But both also supported the relaxing of restrictions if Kay behaved.
Kay’s psychologist Marcelo Rodriguez said the rapist is given a $1300 fortnightly pension and spent $1000 of that on rent, and more financial and housing support would improve his mood and lower his risks.
Similarly, Kay would feel better knowing the ankle monitor could come off if he behaved for 18 months, Rodriguez said.
Kay was sentenced to 20 years in jail after attacking eight women and teenage girls in the 1990s.Credit: Nine News
A second psychologist warned Kay was “a high risk” for sexual touching against women if he senses “rejection from people close to him”.
“(Kay) went seven years without an offence then committed one very similar to ones he committed decades earlier,” psychologist Michael Davis told Justice Hament Dhanji on Friday.
“Before he committed (the latest crimes) I don’t think anyone believed someone in their 70s would be a high risk of a sex offence.”
Kay becomes particularly dangerous, the court heard, when he feels “rejected” by women.
He was feeling rejected in the late 1990s when he attacked eight women and girls, and has continued to attack women since his release in 2015.
The court on Friday heard Kay had re-enacted one of his attacks with an escort in 2018.
Kay bought flowers for the escort and asked her to remove her name from a sex work website. When the “relationship” began to sour Kay walked into a supermarket and planted a “slobbery” kiss on a 16-year-old girl working there.
The courts gave Kay a good behaviour bond for assaulting the teenager, and a short stint in prison for the undisclosed relationship with the escort.
After being released Kay flew under the radar, partly because his identity was suppressed from 2020.
But in 2022 Kay was again rejected, this time at a Buddhist temple. He responded by stalking and attacking the woman in her Sydney CBD unit block.
State barrister Danielle New said Kay couldn’t be trusted to restrain himself and needed leg monitors.
New said psychologists had found Kay “uses sex to cope, to reassure himself of his masculinity” and attacks women when depressed.
Despite that Rodriguez said he refuses antidepressants.
Even now, the court heard, Kay was known to speak to women on the street “to ask for directions”. It showed he doesn’t understand his own high-risk scenarios, New argued.
One of the women, in court, urged other survivors to contact the Victims Registry to oppose Kay’s attempts to evade monitoring.
A decision on Kay’s leg monitor will be handed down at a later date.
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