One of the women who survived the North Shore Rapist helped unmask her own attacker, penning a powerful letter that argued “the community should have the right to protect themselves” in a way she could not have protected herself.
The NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a 2020 ruling that had suppressed Graham James Kay’s name and allowed him to distance himself from his attacks on eight women and girls in the late 1990s.
Kay’s attacks have continued since his release from prison without substantial punishment, and he has since been released back into the community, prompting The Sydney Morning Herald to challenge the suppression order.
Among the pages of evidence provided to the court was a short but powerful letter written by one of the women Kay stalked and assaulted more than 20 years ago.
The woman feared Kay had continued to exhibit “predatory behaviours” since his release from prison, two decades after he attacked her and seven other women and girls.
“The community should be given the opportunity to protect themselves, and they can only do this if they know his identity,” Kay’s victim urged the court in July.
Kay had also been treated softly by the courts before his string of attacks in the 1990s.
He had followed and groped women, spied on other women inside their homes, and been a domestic violence abuser. But despite being brought before the courts five times, he was only punished with good behaviour bonds.
Kay served 18 years in jail for the attacks before being paroled in 2015, but his offending continued.
In 2018, the serial rapist planted a “slobbery kiss” on the cheek of a 16-year-old girl working in a grocery store after the government allowed him to walk around without an electronic ankle monitor.
It was only because of media publicity that the girl knew her assailant was the infamous North Shore Rapist and reported the unwanted kiss to the police, the court found on Tuesday.
Kay was given a good behaviour bond but spent more time in prison because he had a sex worker at his home, in breach of his release conditions.
Despite that, Kay’s restrictions were relaxed again in 2020, and two years later, he stalked and indecently assaulted a terrified woman in Sydney’s CBD.
By then his name was suppressed and crucial details hidden from the public – until the Herald’s legal win this week.
Herald editor Bevan Shields said challenging the suppression of Kay’s name was an “important fight”, but the masthead was spending an increasing amount of time and money challenging similar orders in the courts.
[Ed: This matter needs to be referred to the Judicial Commission. It is an extraordinary demonstration of how the judiciary is failing women in their efforts to protect perpetrators. Thank goodness for Justice Sarah McNaughton now making the correct decision.]
Source: 12ft
What is the legal justification for suppression of the perpetrator’s name?
It may possibly help to understand a law that appears absurd. Or maybe (probably) not…
There is no justification for suppression of the name of a person who has engaged in sexually predatory behaviour, and particularly on an ongoing consistent basis. His name should be on the register of sex offenders – is it? for life. In the United Kingdom it appears that 6 years is a standard term for a sexual predator’s name to be on the register – where the victims (and we trust survivors) are children. This is difficult to understand – although it seems that for some reason this term is one frequently (consistently?) used. It may be that it is for some unknown and mystifying reason in the Bench Book. Courts releasing sexual predators in the way this man has been released have no apparent regard for the women whom they have abused, nor upon whom they will inevitably inflict such abuse in the future.