Australian Broadcasting Corporation


LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1294801.htm

Broadcast: 02/02/2005

Media frenzy raises questions about rehabilitation of sex offenders

Reporter: Peter McCutcheon

KERRY O'BRIEN: Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has appealed for calm after a convicted paedophile was hounded out of his second home in the past fortnight. Dennis Raymond Ferguson was released from jail in 2003 after serving 14 years on multiple child rape and kidnapping charges. He was forced to flee his home in Murgon, north of Brisbane, yesterday after the media and residents were tipped off by the local National Party MP. The media followed him to the city of Ipswich, where he faced another group of angry residents today. Peter McCutcheon reports on a case that raises questions about the punishment and rehabilitation of sex offenders, as well as the public's right to reasonable protection.

PETER McCUTCHEON: Convicted paedophile Dennis Ferguson has served his time in jail, yet he's still on the run. He arrived in Ipswich, west of Brisbane, with a friend last night to an unfriendly reception of TV cameras and angry local residents.

MAN: No sleep tonight. No sleep tonight, Mr Ferguson.

CROWD: Out, you dog! Out, you dog!

MAN: We all got kids, mate.

PETER McCUTCHEON: But having been run out of the small country town of Murgon, north-west of Brisbane, only hours earlier, this case raises questions about the way sex offenders are released back into the community.

PETER BEATTIE (QUEENSLAND PREMIER): Let's not incite vigilantes. Let's actually have some commonsense about this.

MAN: This is what happens when everyone stands up, and we've all got kids here. We ain't gonna put up with that dog in this town - no way.

DR WENDELL ROSEVEAR (PRISON DOCTOR): I don't think you can actually put walls around people forever and think that you're going to solve the problem.

PETER McCUTCHEON: Dennis Raymond Ferguson was released from jail in early 2003 after serving 14 years for kidnapping and molesting three children. Within minutes, he faced the first of a series of clashes with the media.

DENNIS FERGUSON (CONVICTED PAEDOPHILE): What do I say to my (bleep) victims? Nothing, because there was nothing ever took place. You pack of bastards want to line up, I'll show you (bleep) evidence.

PETER McCUTCHEON: Dennis Ferguson has since lived most of the time in New South Wales, where he served another jail term for taking a job giving him access to children. But he returned to Queensland late last year, creating yet more political controversy.

JUDY SPENCE (QUEENSLAND POLICE MINISTER): Dennis Ferguson should be under no illusions: we don't want him in Queensland, but now that he's here, he will be closely monitored by police.

PETER McCUTCHEON: And when the media and local residents discovered Dennis Ferguson's address in Murgon yesterday, only 200m from a childcare centre, the convicted paedophile lost all control. The media was tipped off by local National Party MP Jeff Seeney, who congratulated Murgon residents for driving the paedophile out of town.

JEFF SEENEY (QUEENSLAND NATIONAL PARTY MP): I would encourage other communities to take an example from what happened in Murgon yesterday and to protest peacefully and legally and to stay within the law and to exercise restraint to ensure that the message goes loud and clear to the State Government that the law needs to be changed.

PETER McCUTCHEON: Indeed, the Beattie Government did change the law last year because of the Ferguson case, giving courts in some circumstances the power to keep criminals in jail once their term has been completed. But Dennis Ferguson was released before these laws came into effect, and the Premier today was taking a more measured approach.

PETER BEATTIE: He's gotta live somewhere. Now, I understand the angst of parents. I'm a parent too. Let's not have some sort of stupid vigilante-type approach fanned by the media for very stupid reasons.

DR WENDELL ROSEVEAR: If you treat people badly, then you can expect them to react badly.

PETER McCUTCHEON: Dr Wendell Rosevear is Dennis Ferguson's doctor, and he has concerns about what he sees as a culture of revenge. He says that sex offenders need to feel safe before they can be rehabilitated.

DR WENDELL ROSEVEAR: I never can expect a victim or a perpetrator to be honest until I offer them safety.

PETER McCUTCHEON: Yet Dennis Ferguson refused to take part in rehabilitation programs while in prison, so to what extent has he brought this on himself?

DR WENDELL ROSEVEAR: Well, he was acting out of survival. He didn't feel safe.

DR STEPHEN SMALLBONE (CRIMINOLOGIST, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY): I think there's no doubt at all that we're in the midst of a so-called moral panic, particularly with respect to sexual offences, and I can understand why people feel so strongly about that.

PETER McCUTCHEON: Criminologist and psychologist Dr Stephen Smallbone believes Dennis Ferguson's case has been made all the more difficult by the move across Australian jurisdictions not to gradually release serious offenders back into the community through the parole system.

DR STEPHEN SMALLBONE: There are new provisions to require him to report to police and so on, his whereabouts and activities, but he isn't given access to professional services, as would be the case through the traditional parole system.

WOMAN: Go home, rock spider!

PETER McCUTCHEON: Many agree there's something deeply disturbing about these scenes, and over the past 24 hours, there have been calls for a wide range of remedies. Civil libertarians like Terry O'Gorman argue that the Murgon protesters should be charged with stalking and that the Queensland Government should consider placing a ban on publishing the address of released paedophiles.

TERRY O'GORMAN: But some in the media are in fact almost instigating the end product of vigilantism and a lynch-mob mentality.

PETER McCUTCHEON: Whereas at the other end of the spectrum, the Queensland National Party wants people like Dennis Ferguson essentially locked up for good.

JEFF SEENEY: The law needs to be improved to ensure that these people are kept in a custodial institution, not dumped into communities that don't want them.

PETER McCUTCHEON: But Dennis Ferguson's doctor argues it's ultimately in the interests of society to rehabilitate sex offenders, and in this case, that job has just been made all the more difficult.

DR WENDELL ROSEVEAR: Jesus said, "Treat other people how you want to be treated", and we're almost in a post-Christian culture where, instead of treating other people how we want to be treated, we're treating other people how they treated us - a revenge culture - and I think it's very primitive, and it's based on people trying to get their needs met, but I'm saying it actually makes it worse instead of better.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Peter McCutcheon with that report.