Amy* knows her grandson John* broke the law when the then-15-year-old exchanged intimate images with a classmate in the same year on Instagram in early 2021.
But what she can’t grapple with is why the teenager from Perth’s southern suburbs now finds himself in what feels like a stigmatised life sentence on Western Australia’s sex offender registry alongside the state’s most depraved paedophiles.
Southern suburbs teenager John* has ended up on the WA sex offender registry after a Children’s Court trial.Credit: Digital Vision
After a Children’s Court trial John, now 17, was convicted of two counts of procuring a child to do an indecent act because the judge found he had requested the images from an underage girl, despite the pair being the same age.
Under WA’s mandatory sex offender registration laws, those convictions required John’s immediate registration on the state’s sex offender registry, which imposed significant obligations on himself and Amy.
“He was a stupid 15-year-old who is guilty of sexting, I won’t argue that … I’d be happy to say goodbye to the whole unpleasant business except for the sex offenders register,” Amy, who has been John’s guardian since he was a toddler, said.
“It sounds good for the 50-year-old perverts preying on 13-year-olds, but for two 15-year-olds sexting each other, it seems a bit overkill, to say the least.”
Amy decided to speak out about John’s situation after the Court of Appeal threw out an appeal to quash his convictions last week.
She has joined a chorus of parents, experts and politicians urging the state government to reform the most rigid mandatory registration laws in the country that can see young people remain on the list for anywhere between three and 15 years, depending on the severity of the conviction.
Under the rules, John’s teenage friends cannot stay under Amy’s roof without her notifying authorities, and he can’t join a new football club without them telling the police and the club that he is a registered sex offender.
In a grim irony John, who is still a minor, must sometimes update police on his life in person at an office in the Perth CBD alongside adult sex offenders also fulfilling their reporting obligations.
John no longer goes to school and Amy said she was trying to get him an apprenticeship, but she said his registration had hurt his employability and dented his confidence.
“He is pretty withdrawn these days, he doesn’t go out much, he stays home because he’s got no choice friends-wise, I think it’s had a huge impact,” she said.
Amy’s concerns mirror the findings of a 2019 upper house committee that found rare consensus across the political spectrum that WA’s mandatory registration laws for young people were the harshest in the country and courts should have more discretion.
The report found between 2014 and 2018 there were 262 children registered as reportable offenders – 79 under 14 years old – while 35 were charged with possession or distribution of child exploitation material. About 8 per cent were on the register for offences relating to “willing sexual activity”.
In his foreword, the committee chair, Labor’s Matthew Swinbourn, said young people on the register were permanently stigmatised as child sex offenders.
“In essence a paedophile,” he said. “Make no mistake, registration as a child or young person on the mandatory sex offender register is a punishment for life.”
In the past six years, states like NSW and Victoria have pulled back on mandatory registration and empowered courts to register only young people convicted of particularly heinous sexual crimes.
Different surveys of Australian adolescents suggest anywhere between 10 per cent and 50 per cent of teenagers have sent an intimate image or video of themselves to another person.
Murdoch University criminology expert Dr Michael Wilson said reforms shouldn’t decriminalise all sexting – pointing out that in cases where an intimate image was shared with third parties the harm to victims was severe.
However, he said the government should consider it in the case of two teenagers close in age where there were no power imbalances, and they willingly shared the images with only each other.
Wilson said in these instances, the criminal justice system should not be used but rather police should adopt an educative response.
“In those cases, the solution to me seems to be about education, building it into the curriculum, and making them aware of the risks,” he said.
Wilson said the best way to stop recidivism was to give young people access to education, employment and a supportive family environment, all made harder if they were registered sex offenders.
“If you start criminalising them, you put them on some of these registries, it makes their access to those protective factors more difficult,” he said.
John’s lawyer, Cornerstone legal director Tim Houweling, agreed.
“The consequence of being placed onto the register is disproportionate for a young person,” he said.
The 2019 upper house committee report made 47 findings and 23 recommendations to the government, all of which suggested more discretion for courts to avoid children being unnecessarily placed on the register.
At the time the government supported most of the recommendations, but public discussion of reform has since fallen silent.
A spokeswoman for Police Minister Paul Papalia revealed plans to introduce reforms to parliament responding to the 2019 report before March 2025.
“Amendments to the Community Protection (Offender Reporting) Act, which address recommendations from the 2019 parliamentary committee report, will enter parliament before the end of the term,” she said.
That may come too late for John, who will have been on the register for four years by that stage.
“What is this achieving? To alienate [John] towards the whole system?” Amy said.
*Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of all parties involved as juvenile offenders and victims cannot be identified for legal reasons.
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