THE ARMADALE RAPIST

The man known as the Armadale rapist, a man who terrorised Melbourne girls and women for a decade, is about to be released from jail. Yet again. Mark Anthony Jewell, a serial rapist, is about to be freed.

This is a man who committed his last sexual assault only six months after being released the last time. He indecently assaulted a 12-year-old girl in the presence of an eight-year-old after befriending the younger girl’s mother.

Judge Caroline Douglas said that Jewell had found where the woman lived and repeatedly turned up at her flat. ‘You intended to insinuate yourself into her family and assault her children or other children’. This was just after his release from jail.

Before that he was dubbed the ‘Armadale rapist’ and jailed for 16 years in March 1990, after pleading guilty to a series of violent sexual attacks during the 1980s. His victims were between nine years old and 42.

After his release he was arrested and jailed for 18 months for stalking his neighbour and sending offensive letters to three teenage girls.

Jewell is what is known as a ‘groomer’. He stalks his targets. He ingratiates himself. In his last court appearance he also pleaded guilty to a series of burglaries and thefts from Melbourne Girls’ Grammar in South Yarra and Firbank in Brighton. He stole clothing and bags and diaries and developed photos from a student’s camera to try to identify the owners.  When arrested he was wearing a pair of  Firbanks’ girl bathers under his pyjamas.

Police believe Jewell committed many other sex assaults for which he has never been charged and in jail he refused any counselling to aid his rehabilitation.

In court a judge said Jewell was resistant to reform and a psychiatrist warned that if released he would assault girls and women again.

Personally I don’t care about Jewell’s rehabilitation. His list of crimes, his serial record, is so bad that a mechanism must be found to keep violent predators like this behind bars. Like they now have in New South Wales and Queensland. And if ever released on parole monsters like Jewell must be on such a short leash they have no opportunity to attack again.

The community not only deserves it. We should demand it.

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2008