NSW: Judge orders serial sex offender's release from jail

AAP General News (Australia)
12-11-2008
NSW: Judge orders serial sex offender's release from jail

SYDNEY, Dec 11 AAP - A NSW Supreme Court judge has ordered the release of serial sex
offender John Alan Wilde.

Wilde, 46, has been in near-continuous custody since 1981 for a string of rapes, including
the assault of a young mother in front of her two children.

He was last jailed in 1993 for 16 years after forcing his way into a Sydney woman's
home and ordering her to perform oral sex on him at knife-point, just 13 days after he
had been released on parole.

It was the third time Wilde had committed such an offence, having already served jail
terms for home invasions and rapes committed in 1981 and 1983.

At the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday, Justice David Kirby verbally ordered the supervised
release of Wilde.

The formal judgment will be handed down at noon on Friday.

Comment was sought from the Department of Corrective Services and the Attorney-General's
Department.

In January, Paul Menzies QC, for the Attorney-General's Department, told the NSW Supreme
Court the department had "no confidence" in the defendant's safe release into the community.

At that time, the court was told a Department of Community Services (DoCS) officer
had interviewed Wilde as part of a pre-release risk management program, and Wilde had
claimed he was innocent of all but his first conviction.

He also allegedly told the DoCS officer he would "hunt down" a female witness who had
testified at one of his trials.

Wilde's maximum jail term expired in November 2007, but he has been kept behind bars
on a series of interim detention orders.

In January, he was placed on an eight-month continuing detention order and ordered
to undergo rehabilitative treatment.

AAP nap/hn/jl/bwl

KEYWORD: WILDE

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