Leading child protection advocate Hetty Johnston labels Australia ‘soft on paedophiles’

A leading child protection advocate has slammed Australia’s approach to managing convicted paedophiles. On Tuesday, The West Australian revealed two serial paedophiles would be released from prison next month despite the State arguing they should stay locked up to protect the community. Last week, Supreme Court Justice Joseph McGrath decided Albany man Jonathon Neal Lewis, 32, and Naval Base man Ian Everitt Atkinson, 63, could be safely managed with community supervision orders despite State requests to keep them in prison. After hearing of Justice McGrath’s decisions, Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston, pictured, urged all Premiers to introduce mandatory detention for repeat offenders. “We are pathetically soft on sex offenders in Australia,” Ms Johnston said. Her comments come after the death of 11-year-old WA girl Annaliesse Ugle last week, who took her own life when her accused rapist was granted bail. Ms Johnston said the only way to manage convicted paedophiles was to continue their detention. In WA, legislation grants the Supreme Court powers to release abusers if it is found they will not continue to pose an unacceptable risk of reoffending under community supervision orders. “This is why we’ve called for mandatory sentencing ,” Ms Johnston said. On Tuesday, WA Attorney General John Quigley said Justice McGrath’s decisions had been assessed on a case-by-case basis and he supported the “independence of the judiciary”. Mr Quigley said he opposed any form of mandatory punishment, arguing the previous Labor Government’s reversal of the balance of proof — so that sex predators had to convince the court they would adhere to the conditions of their release — had been effective. He said the two men were subject to about 50 conditions including GPS monitoring and they could not be kept locked up beyond their sentence without clear evidence they would breach the conditions. Shadow Attorney General Michael Mischin accused the Attorney of changing his views after getting into government. “(In Opposition) John Quigley constantly criticised any release of a dangerous sex offender into the community under a supervision order and exploited community outrage that it was happening,” Mr Mischin said.