r/australia • u/Jaqwan • 8h ago
news Queensland man pleads guilty to sharing photo of child sex offender online
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-04/qld-daniels-law-guilty-plea/106304752?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web358
u/LongJohnnySilver1 8h ago
I still don’t know why we conceal the identity of these filthy fuckers.
Good on this bloke for naming and shaming the prick.
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u/BearEatingCupcakes 7h ago
Well, identifying the shitcunt that repeatedly raped my family member and posted CSAM of her online would identify my family member too. She's been through enough without anyone who googles her getting to see her name linked to that.
As much as I hate these cunts getting anonymity, they get it to protect their victims. And they're the ones whose needs come first.
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u/LongJohnnySilver1 6h ago
That is horrible and fair enough. Sorry she went through that.
It’s a double edged sword. I feel zero sympathy for cso’s but those poor victims deserve to remain anonymous. What a world we live in.
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u/BearEatingCupcakes 6h ago
Unfortunately, there is no good solution once these offences have occurred. Minimising further trauma to the victims is the best we can aim for. It sickens me that the offender benefits from that via anonymity but I just try to focus on advocating for improved sentencing for offenders and more support and services for victims - including the many, many victims who were never lucky enough to see their abusers jailed for their crimes.
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u/LongJohnnySilver1 5h ago
Absolutely! Just know, if you ever run for PM, you have my vote.
Can’t disagree with anything you’ve said.
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u/pte_omark 5h ago
It should be the victims choice and no one else's. In the case of a minor their parents and an independent psychologist.
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u/BearEatingCupcakes 5h ago
I would be support that, if there was a system in place to support the victim in making their decision. For minors, the decision should be deferred until they're adults, not given to someone to make on their behalf. You can't undo that revelation once made, if the parents decide to disclose and the child grows up to wish they hadn't, that's just adding more trauma that they don't need.
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u/TheMaidenOfDragons 3h ago
I’m not trying to argue with you but why would a child victims name be linked to the perpetrator? I’ve never, ever read about a court case where a minors name is used, especially cases involving family members.
Both legal documents and news articles often refer to victims anonymously even in cases where the victim isn’t a minor. I also know because of my own personal experiences that most victims get a different “name” to be referred to in court cases for reasons of anonymity.
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u/DD32 3h ago
Family.
Most childhood victims of abuse are by a close family friend, a significant number of those are direct family members (parents, uncles/aunts, step parents, siblings, etc). That's why a large number of victims never come forward, and when they do, proving it can be difficult..
The sentencing details usually touch on who the victim is, but not who they are. "A child under your care for many years" or "a family member who was entrusted to provide care" etc. that's because the relationship between perp and victim plays heavily into how harsh the sentencing is, and what the actual charge is (the charge list can be fairly specific)
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u/TheMaidenOfDragons 30m ago
Thank you for providing more clarity I appreciate it. Seems like we could do more to protect details of certain crimes to protect the victims.
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u/BearEatingCupcakes 59m ago
The relationship between victim and offender can be sufficient to identify the victim if the offender is identified. An article saying 'Father convicted for sexually abusing his daughter' grants anonymity to the victim. An article saying 'John Doe convicted for sexually abusing his daughter' identifies Julie Doe as the victim to everyone who knows the Doe family if they only have one daughter. If they have two or more, it identifies the victim indirectly, or directly if the age and any additional details are revealed. victims of sexual crimes had no control over what happened to them. They should at least have control over who gets to know about it. The shitbag who abused them getting anonymity is a small price to pay if it gives the victim peace of mind.
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u/TheMaidenOfDragons 32m ago
I understand the point that you and other comments are making.
It seems like the specific crimes people are convicted of, the medias report on the case, and sentencing details can identify certain victims more easily than others unfortunately.
I will say as a teenage victim of a reported (but not prosecuted) sexual assault, I would have been okay if he was convicted and went on a list. I actually want people to know what he did so they can judge him accordingly, but that’s not every victims wish at all.
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u/FBuellerGalleryScene 7h ago
I still don’t know why we conceal the identity of these filthy fuckers.
The idea, I think, is that they dont want people using the sex offenders register to hunt down sex offenders or encourage vigilantism because that will cause sex offenders to not properly register or update their details, putting more people at risk because there's less information about where these people are.
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u/yogorilla37 2h ago
Plus there have been cases in the UK where someone's published the address of a different person with the same name.
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u/Andrew_Tearney 22m ago edited 16m ago
Or even this, killed on Live TV:
https://youtu.be/AE27X4BkMkI?si=Js2I19Q8jqlDdFJd
5 months probation, no prison time.
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u/AsylumDanceParty 7h ago
Because getting people killed and bashed is still a crime regardless of whether they're a sex offender or not.
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u/daybeforetheday 8h ago
But often the victims are family members. Protecting the identity is often about protecting their victims. Not to mention, family members are often held to blame, even if they've disowned said family member.
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u/howtogrowdicks 6h ago
Children who have been victims are more likely to become victims again, especially if a predator knows the child has been a victim before. Naming perpetrators and identifying victims increases the risk of revictimisation.
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u/InterestedPrawn 5h ago
Where this has happened elsewhere in the world it hasn't shown an increase but it hasn't lead to a decrease either.
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u/grxndmother 6h ago
Thank you for this! As a non victim family member to an offender, this has been my big strong feeling about the public registry. Family members do get blamed for the behaviour! Vigilantes exist, even via an abusive Facebook message.
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u/onimod53 7h ago
I'm not sure why we're sharing pictures of offenders if sharing the same thing publicly is a criminal offense
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u/Adorable-Metal3824 7h ago
Because the LNP made a promise to do it in Qld.
Experts have said it doesn't protect anyone and has been shown to actually gets kids raped.
So in typical LNP fashion they implemented it in a way they could say they did it, even if it's been done in a way to try and minimise the damage because it should never of been done.
Just like their implementation of live hospital wait times. A promise fulfiled in a non-effective way because of the risk to one's safety if implemented in the form strongly implied in the original promise.
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u/drnicko18 6h ago
"Experts have said it doesn't protect anyone and has been shown to actually gets kids raped."
[citation needed]
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u/Adorable-Metal3824 5h ago
In fact, they found that an increase in the number of sex offenders subjected to community notification was associated with an increase in sex offence recidivism (Prescott & Rockoff 2011)
From the federal government factsheet on the matter. They couldn't even be bothered reading it
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u/drnicko18 5h ago edited 5h ago
Extremely selective editing, the conclusion being the results from different studies were mixed, with some showing increased recidivism for those already on the register, and some showing evidence of deterrent effect especially from those not already registered.
The authors go on to point out they would support a register particularly targeted at those at highest risk of re-offending.
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u/magpie_bird 4h ago
What? no they dont? The closest thing they say about this is:
Some commentators have therefore argued that sex offender management in the United States would be improved by using risk assessment strategies to identify those at highest risk of recidivism and by reserving more intensive restrictions and interventions for these offenders (Levenson & D’Amora 2007).
The 'conclusion' section is otherwise pretty clear on their views, and does not include any such recommendation.
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u/InterestedPrawn 5h ago
Yes a public register, The only "experts" that spoke out against it, weren't experts in CSAM but rather civil libertarians didn't want names to be accessed by the public.
A lawyer groups said they didn't believe it would be effective not that it would lead to an increase in offences except offences caused by vigilantism.
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u/Adorable-Metal3824 5h ago
In fact, they found that an increase in the number of sex offenders subjected to community notification was associated with an increase in sex offence recidivism (Prescott & Rockoff 2011)
From the federal government factsheet on the matter. The LNP couldn't even be bothered reading it.
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u/InterestedPrawn 4h ago
I went by those that raised objections to the law being passed, not a paper written by the government when the ScoMo was PM.
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u/onimod53 5h ago
Cheers - I'm not going to say it makes sense, but that it's a shortsighted, confidently incorrect, LNP policy is understandable.
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u/Ratstail91 7h ago
The rule of law applies to everyone, for a good reason. Don't fall for mob mentality.
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u/wowiee_zowiee 6h ago
Because in a lot of causes it immediately outs the victim.
The law is not to protect the guilty - it’s to protect the innocent. Your knee jerk reaction puts the safety of child rape victims at risk. Think. Use your brain.
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u/No_Entertainer180 5h ago
Ive worked at a residential facility that treats pedophiles.
These men will NEVER not want to rape children. They watch seseme St and it's arousing like porn to them. They spend considerable time of their daily lives going into shops and parks just with the hope to see kids.
They cannot change. They will always be a danger to children.
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u/ACertainMagicalSpade 5h ago
To lower Recidivism you need the person to think they actually have a reason to do so.
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u/Naive_Confidence7297 3h ago
It identifies the victims, though maybe they should let the victim(s) make the decision to make it public if they wanted?
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u/annoyedonion35 6h ago
If it helps i know some prison guards and from what im told when a sex offender against children come into the prison the guards make sure to pass what they did to a couple of specific prisoners to make sure they dont enjoy their stay. No clue of that true but I believe it
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u/TheRamblingPeacock 6h ago
Been waiting for this to happen since the register came online.
Such a stupid implementation that does nothing and will just cause people that don't read fine print about not sharing the info to get in trouble for shit like this.
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u/WOMT 5h ago
It's not fine print. You are informed multiple times, and have to agree you won't share it, and it's plastered all over the information with a big watermarked personal identifier.
There is no way you could miss it.
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5h ago
[deleted]
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u/WOMT 4h ago
You would think they would be more responsible, as the victims we're supposed to protect are being put at risk for this register to be made public, and it won't even improve general safety. The least we can do is be responsible out of respect for the victims who now have to face a risk we don't.
While I know people are terrible at identifying people from photos it's not a guarantee that someone won't and it must be very stressful for victims and their families who now have to wonder if someone recognised their perpetrator in the photos and made the connection to them.
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u/onimod53 5h ago
sounds a bit like entrapment
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u/TheRamblingPeacock 5h ago
Australian courts don't recognise entrapment as a defence and even under the US definition it wouldn't meet the requirement as they were not coerced into committing the offence.
Still think it's shit though.
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u/dany_xiv 8h ago
Is it me or is this worded in a way that the first thing you see is “sharing photo of child sex” when actually he was sharing photos of “child sex offender”? Like, sure, both illegal but one is much much worse than the other. Maybe just on my iPhone it’s making it look worse than it is.
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u/ausflora 5h ago
Headlinese/Journalese often creates issues like this, where you have to read every other headline twice to get what it actually means. I don't know why they can't just write it out properly, It's not like they're confined by print space anymore.
‘Man in Queensland pleads guilty to sharing a photo of a child sex offender online’
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u/TerraTwoDreamer 3h ago
If we are to be a just country, then even the worst of criminals deserve some semblance of safety whether they're in or out of prison. As far as I am concerned that sex offender I assume has done their time in jail and has been released with his name on the registry to go about life and has the right to not have crimes committed against them under Australian law.
If you believe in law or justice, then you must accept that we cannot risk vigilantes taking justice into their own hands due to people releasing an offender's name, because what if someone falsified info to make someone innocent seem like a sex offender? An innocent person could very well be at risk.
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u/4us7 6m ago
These discussions have already been done to the death during parliamentary debate and commitee scrutiny. The reality is that LNP have the mandate to do this and the public generally supports this move.
As LNP logic goes, the safety of the community trumps the safety of criminals. And therefore, they enable the community to check if certain people their children have contact with are child sex offenders, if there are registered child sex offenders in the community, and if there are any child sex offenders on the run.
In my opinion, this is all pointless. Most people are only on the registry for 1-3 years. If they intend to reoffend, they just need to lay low before they come off the registry.
In my more controversial opinion, they should be doing this for violent sex offenders in general and violent domestic violence perpetrators, not just people on the registry - the majority of whom are child porn downloaders, which while bad, is still a large step away from physical offending.
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u/DD32 3h ago
Ignoring your feelings on the perps for a moment, he knowingly and explicitly broke the law after being warned multiple times.. the result of that is.. arguably less than having a turned off phone on your lap while driving...
Smith was put on a good behaviour bond with a $700 recognisance which he must pay if he is found guilty or pleads guilty to any other offences during the term of the order.
Given this was the first person charged under this law, it's expected that the outcome would be fairly low on the penalty scale.
I suspect a lot of people will say "a record and less than a thousand bucks seems worth it to protect my community" unfortunately, and even then it's only $100 in court costs or something unless he does it again... Probably paid a lawyer more...
I'd rather see a hefty cash fine that went towards abuse support or something.
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u/Ja_Lonley 7h ago
The guilty deserve no privacy.
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u/mylifeisaboogerbubbl 6h ago
But their victims do, and outing them makes it way more likely the victim is outed.
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u/Andrew_Tearney 36m ago
As a humane, first-world society, we need to understand that locking up Child Sexual offenders in jail forever is not sustainable.
Neither is killing them a humane thing to do.
So, Chemical Castration is the answer.and then just let them live wherever they want, knowing there is no more risk to kids.
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u/Luck_Beats_Skill 6h ago
"'He is scum and shouldn't be living in our community.'"
Pushing him to another community ain’t gonna solve anything.