A low IQ African refugee who sexually abused his nine-year-old niece has been allowed to stay in Australia because he would lose access to NDIS support for his intellectual disability if deported back to Sierra Leone.
The illiterate child sex offender, 37, was anonymised as YGTC to protect his identity by the Administrative Review Tribunal in Melbourne on Thursday after successfully appealing the October 2025 cancellation of his humanitarian visa.
ART Senior Member Margret Bourke overturned the cancellation under immigration minister Tony Burke’s controversial Ministerial Direction 110, which has resulted in dozens of serious criminals being spared deportation in recent months.
The tribunal heard that YGTC was convicted of two counts of indecent act with a child aged under 16 years for abusing his sister’s daughter in 2015, but spared jail and given an 18-month Community Corrections Order (CCO) after pleading guilty in 2019.
While under the CCO he was referred to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, placed on an NDIS plan and has continued to receive support services, the tribunal heard, and was not required to complete a sex offender program as he was assessed as “low risk”.
Ms Bourke noted that YGTC had “an intellectual functioning in the extremely low range, with tests recording that he functions in the first or second percentile”, meaning he has an IQ lower than 69, and therefore did not warn him against self-incrimination at the start of the hearing so as not to “confuse” him.
She found that he would face “significant social and economic hardship” if returned to his home country, as “the assistance available for persons with disabilities in Sierra Leone is virtually non-existent”.
“I accept that the accessibility and provision of services for people with disabilities in Sierra Leone is chronically limited and difficult,” she said in her decision.
“My assessment of the country information provided is that the Applicant would not be able to access the social work support and psychological assistance, or the funding he receives through the NDIS plan for his ongoing treatment and support in Australia, if he returned to Sierra Leone.”
Ms Bourke also found he would not have the support of his “protective network of his family and church community”, and that “his current stability and well-being, his ability to maintain employment, and his ability to remain offence free would all be potentially jeopardised” if he was deported.
She further found that it was in the best interests of YGTC’s two minor children, aged 1 and 2, for him to remain in Australia, that his wife and parents rely on his for support, and that he was unlikely to reoffend, even though a psychologist found he had “no insight into the effect of the behaviour on his niece”.
“I accept that these conclusions [of the psychologist] are consistent with the Applicant’s diagnosis of significant intellectual impairment, and an acquired brain injury,” she wrote.
“Within the limits of the Applicant’s capability, I am satisfied that the Applicant accepts responsibility and has some comprehension of the seriousness of his actions.”
Direction 110, which has been maintained by Mr Burke throughout his tenure as immigration minister, requires the tribunal to take into account community protection, family violence, ties to Australia, the best interests of minor children, community expectations, legal consequences, impediments if removed, and impact on Australian business interests.
This year alone the ART has used the ministerial direction to restore the visas of a Chinese wife-killer, an Ethiopian rapist, an obese homosexual Indian paedophile, an Iranian drug smuggler, a killer Sri Lankan driver, and a Sudanese refugee who was jailed over the fatal stabbing of an Australian teenager.
Header image: Tony Burke (Facebook).
