Page 3931 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 29 November 2022

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Question put:

That the motion be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

And so it was resolved in the affirmative, with the concurrence of a two-thirds majority of members.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Sitting suspended from 11.38 am to 2.00 pm.

Questions without notice

Crime—offences while on bail

MS LEE: My question is to the Attorney-General. Attorney-General, you have previously argued strongly that there is no need for bail review. I refer to the case of an offender who was arrested for two counts of raping a seven-year-old child. He was charged and released on bail the next day. While on bail, he assaulted and raped another child, a 12-year-old. The victims’ families have spoken on how the victims experienced things that no child should ever have to and said that the offender “took away her innocence and childhood”. Attorney-General, one mother stated: “It has torn the family apart. This will never be fixed.”

Attorney-General, I ask what the community is asking: how is it possible that a person charged with raping a child—someone who a judge has referred to as having a higher than average chance of reoffending—can be granted bail to then rape another child?

MR RATTENBURY: This is clearly a terrible set of circumstances. My sympathies go out to the persons involved, particularly the victims, who have experienced something no-one should ever have to experience. The circumstances Ms Lee describes leave all of us distressed by their very nature. In terms of Ms Lee’s specific question—how is a person granted bail?—Ms Lee well knows that the decision to be granted bail is made by a judicial officer, under the terms of the Bail Act, which set

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