There is growing support for the death penalty for pedophiles after a child care worker was charged with a litany of heinous child crimes this week.
The 45-year-old man, who was a former employee of the Gold Coast children’s center, was charged this week with 1,623 offenses against 91 pre-pubescent girls.
They include 136 cases of rape and 110 cases of sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 10 in Brisbane, Sydney and abroad between 2007 and 2022.
Nationals Party senator Matt Canavan says it’s time to talk about a harsher sentence than life imprisonment.
“Life imprisonment seems too soft a punishment for a crime so heinous,” he told the Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday.
“We should consider the death penalty for people who have destroyed so many other lives.”
“I was just absolutely horrified at the meanness and wickedness of this behavior and also at the magnitude of it and how this has happened to so many people over so many years and why it hasn’t stopped,” he said.
“There needs to be a proper investigation into, well, how information was shared, why this couldn’t have been stopped sooner and how we can make sure things like this don’t happen again.”
“I mean, surely we don’t have a punishment on the books strong enough for this horrible person.”
Senator Canavan described life imprisonment as a “slap on the wrist for this kind of behavior.”
“Maybe we need a debate on the death penalty for these kinds of crimes,” he added.
“This is so bad that in my mind there must be something stronger than life imprisonment.”
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan (pictured) has called for a discussion about the death penalty after a man was charged with 1,623 child molestation charges
The 45-year-old man, who was a former employee of a Gold Coast childcare center, allegedly abused 91 pre-pubescent girls over a 15-year period (stock image)
2GB presenter Ben Fordham also advocated the death penalty.
“If my child was one of the victims, I would want him dead,” Fordham said.
It follows a similar argument for extreme punishment for child molesters from Pauline Hanson.
The One Nation leader believes convicted pedophiles should be chemically castrated and listed in a national database.
“I support chemical castration and tougher punishments for pedophiles, and the creation of a national database of pedophiles,” she told Daily Mail Australia.
“People are very concerned about the safety of their children and they want strong laws and penalties for those convicted of pedophilia,” said Ms Hanson.
“For sex offenses that do not involve children, I think it is appropriate that the presiding judge or judge determines the appropriate punishment under the relevant law.”
Pauline Hanson has called for chemical castration of pedophiles and tougher sentences for sex offenders
A Daily Mail Australia mock-up of what an online national child molester might look like. Above are some of Australia’s most well-known offenders – including Brett Cowan, Michael Guider, Robert Hughes, Robert Fardon and Ryan Clegg
Despite Ms Hanson supporting a national pedophile registry, if she decides to introduce legislation in parliament to allow it, she could face opposition, with state politicians opposing a similar idea backed by the coalition in 2020.
Secretary of the Interior Peter Dutton announced that the federal government would put $7.8 million into a public registry of convicted sex offenders in January 2019 — just ahead of the May 2019 election.
Under the policy, the names, aliases, photographs and the nature of sex offenders’ crimes would be made public, as well as their general location.
Despite the federal government providing the funds for the project to take place, it fell to the state governments to introduce it in their jurisdictions.
The government of Queensland Premier Annastasia Palasczcuk has voted down a motion in support of such a register, in a move Mr Dutton’s spokeswoman dismissed as ‘deeply frustrating’.
The man at the center of the indictment revealed this week has spent the past year in custody after being charged initially with making child exploitative material and once with using a carriage service for child pornography.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough (pictured) warned the alleged details would be ‘deeply upsetting’ to the community as police spoke about the details on Tuesday
AFP Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough warned the alleged details would be “deeply upsetting” to the community as police spoke about the details on Tuesday.
NSW Assistant Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald described the case as ‘one of the most horrific cases of child abuse he had seen in his 40-year career’.
According to the police, there were 91 young victims. They were all young girls – 87 Australians and four from abroad.
They claim that between 2007 and 2013 and between 2018 and 2022, the man recorded all of the offenses on phones and cameras while working at 10 daycare centers in Brisbane; an early learning center linked to a school abroad in 2013 and 2014; and one center in Sydney between 2014 and 2017.
Police would not comment on the locations of the alleged abuse to protect the identity of the victims.
Why the alleged abuse went so long and unnoticed is not yet known what roles the man played within the childcare centers where he worked.
The man has been behind bars for the past 12 months and his case is expected to be presented to Brisbane Magistrates Court on August 21.