Child sex offender wins battle over daughters

An Australian court has granted permission for a convicted child sex offender to have his two young daughters spend every other weekend with him, provided he places a lock on their bedroom door and has another adult stay overnight with them.

The ruling by the Family Court in Hobart has shocked child welfare groups, and follows an application by the father to have joint access to the girls, aged 8 and 10. He was convicted in 2007 of three child pornography offences, including creating a video recording by copying internet pages featuring girls aged 10 to 14, naked or in bikinis.

The man's name was placed on the Sexual Offenders Register for five years, with the trial judge declaring himself "far from convinced" by the defence's argument that he posed no risk to children.

The Family Court judge, Robert Benjamin, said that while he accepted that the man's daughters "need some protection from him, particularly at night", he believed the risk of him "acting inappropriately with the children is significantly diminished when they are awake and alert and when the children are together".

The man's wife, who left him after he was convicted of the offences, has been fighting to restrict his access to the girls. The elder daughter told a child protection worker she was not comfortable staying at her father's house, or spending time alone with him. She said: "I do not like it. It makes me feel weird."

The court was told that the man invited the elder girl into his bed while she was staying at his house last year, and "demonstrated affection towards her in a way that was, in all the circumstances, inappropriate for a child of that age".

The judge ordered the girls to spend alternate weekends with their father, as well as half their school holidays and every other Christmas Day, "provided there is some other adult person present in the house, during the father's overnight time, and the mother knows the name and age of that adult".

He added: "I am satisfied that there needs to be a door on the children's bedroom which is capable of being shut at the request of the children. They should at least, until the youngest is 14, share the same room so that they can have the mutual support of one another."