Inside the twisted mind of a pedophile refugee allowed to stay in Australia after a landmark Supreme Court ruling: Details emerge about what he did in Sydney before he was locked up

A refugee who raped a 10-year-old boy in his Sydney home did not believe what he did was wrong because it was “culturally acceptable” in his home country of Myanmar.

The pedophile was released from immigration detention this week after a Supreme Court decision overturned previous findings that he posed a danger to the public.

The court has made a landmark ruling that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful, likely forcing the release of nearly 100 other non-citizens who cannot be deported to their home countries.

Nearly all of these detainees had their visas revoked due to character issues, and many had previously been convicted of sexual or other violent crimes.

The pedophile, known in court as NZYQ, arrived on Christmas Island by boat in September 2012 after fleeing a village in Myanmar where its Rohingya population faces persecution and denial of citizenship.

He spent 11 months in immigration detention before being granted a bridging visa and allowed to live with a relative in Sydney.

On January 8, 2015, NZYQ visited the home of a fellow Rohingya refugee who shared a bedroom with his 10-year-old son.

While the father was out of the bedroom, NZYQ entered, closed the door and anally raped the boy on his bed.

From outside the room, the father had heard NZYQ say, “I’ll give you money to do this,” and his son responded, “My father will hit me.”

NZYQ, who was arrested the next day, has no birth certificate but believes he was born between 1995 and 1997 and was therefore probably between 17 and 19 years old when he raped the boy.

Immigration authorities revoked NZYQ’s bridging visa a week after his arrest and a year later he pleaded guilty to one count of sexual intercourse with a person between 10 and 14 years old.

During a hearing in the NSW District Court, NZYQ told Judge Andrew Scotting he did not know what he had done was wrong or a crime because he had been regularly raped as a child by older boys in his village.

He claimed he asked the boy if they could have sex and he agreed.

“The perpetrator stated that he did not think what he was asking for was a bad thing or a crime and believed that men were having sex with each other, as happened in Myanmar,” Judge Scotting said.

“The perpetrator lacked insight into his actions and normalized them as culturally acceptable to excuse his abusive behavior. The perpetrator insisted that the complainant agreed and was willing to participate.”

Judge Scotting sentenced NZYQ, who was assessed as a medium to high risk of reoffending, to five years in prison with a non-parole period of three years and four months.

While NZYQ was in custody, he applied for a protection visa and upon expiry of his prison sentence in May 2018, he was detained as an unlawful non-citizen.

NZYQ, who has expressed remorse for his crime in recent years but never entered a sex offender program despite agreeing to do so, has been in detention since.

His protection visa application was rejected in July 2020 when authorities found NZYQ was “a danger to the Australian community”, and that decision was upheld by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal last March.

NZYQ then took his case to the High Court, which ruled in his favor on Wednesday and ordered him released immediately.

His case was supported by the Human Rights Law Center and the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Lawyers for NZYQ had argued it was unconstitutional to keep someone in custody when there was no chance he would be deported.

NZYQ, now in his late 20s, had asked to be removed from Australia in May 2022 but no country could be found willing to take him.

The High Court ruled that NZYQ’s detention was unlawful because there was ‘no realistic prospect that his removal from Australia would become practicable in the reasonably foreseeable future’.

The decision overturns a 2004 ruling that allowed the indefinite detention of non-citizens without visas even if they could not be deported, and is likely to lead to the release of 92 other detainees in the same position.

On Friday, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said NZYQ had already been released.

“Other affected persons will be released and any visas granted to these persons will be subject to appropriate conditions,” he said.

‘We are carefully considering the implications of the verdict and will continue to work with the authorities to ensure the safety of the community is maintained.’

Lawyer Craig Lenehan SC had indicated that NZYQ was unable to obtain Myanmar citizenship and that several attempts to deport his client were unsuccessful.

“He is not a citizen of any other country and does not have a travel document,” Lenehan told the court on Tuesday.

“The Home Office has never successfully transferred a person convicted of an offense involving sexual offenses against a child to any country other than a country that recognizes the person as a citizen.”

Chief Justice Stephen Gageler was told that some detainees were considered less desirable by other countries because of their criminal records or the security risk they might pose.

“Another way of saying that – a less appealing way of saying it – is that they are being held in custody because of their character,” he said.