A notorious Sudanese rapist has been set free in Tasmania despite repeatedly breaching a high risk offender order imposed when he was released from prison for raping an elderly woman.
Christo Brown, 29, was locked up for eight years for breaking into a home in Launceston in 2015 and violently raping his 76-year-old victim in her bed, but was controversially let out in October last year despite community anger and calls for him to be deported.
Brown breached the order in January by consuming alcohol, and was then put back in custody again in June after breaching his curfew twice and being charged with drink driving.
He has pleaded not guilty to drink driving, but last week admitted breaching his bail and appeared in a Hobart court on Tuesday, where Deputy chief magistrate Ken Stanton sentenced him to one months’ jail, backdated to when he was taken into custody, The Mercury reported.
The court heard Brown was required to be at his home address between 6am and 8pm, but on May 31 his ankle monitor revealed he was not there at 8pm. He arrived three minutes later and claimed he was getting a phone charger from his brother.
Then on June 13 he contacted a compliance unit to tell them he was at a Hungry Jacks drive-thru and would be late. He arrived at 8.06pm, but was found outside the property boundary talking to an associate in a car, and then failed to provide a oral fluid sample to police.
His defence lawyer Fran McCracken told the court her client had “done enough time” in custody, and said he had been the victim of racist commentary online.
“Photographs were taken and posted on social media without his consent,” she said.
Tasmanian Supreme Court Chief Justice Chris Shanahan KC determined last year that a high risk offender order was necessary as Brown posed “an unacceptable risk of committing another serious offence”.
The five-year order includes the curfew, electronic monitoring, mandatory counselling, a ban on drugs and alcohol as he had been drinking at the time of the rape, and a requirement that Brown seek permission to leave Tasmania.
Brown fled to Melbourne immediately after the 2015 attack, but his DNA was found on his victim’s nightgown, and in 2018 he was extradited to Tasmania to face trial after being jailed for 277 days in Queensland for sexual assault while on bail for the Launceston rape and aggravated burglary charges.
His trial heard that his victim, who prayed for him after the rape and gave him a religious pamphlet titled Our Daily Bread, would suffer from the effects of the attack for the rest of her life.
Furious Tasmanians responded to the order by starting an online petition calling on Immigration Minister Tony Burke to deport Brown in order to protect public safety.
Just weeks later Mr Burke personally cancelled the visa of peaceful protester Matthew Gruter, but has refused to intervene in Brown’s case, or dozens of others involving serious criminals who have had their visa cancellations overturned by a tribunal.
Header image: Christo Brown being extradited to Tasmania in 2018.
