A schizophrenic British immigrant who avoided jail for grooming and indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl has now been spared deportation from Australia.
Child sex offender Mark Anthony Brooks, 52, appeared before the Administrative Review Tribunal from the Melbourne Immigration Detention Centre on Monday to appeal his visa cancellation, and on Wednesday has his visa restored.
Brooks was convicted of committing an indecent act with a child under 16, grooming a child for a sexual offence, procuring a minor for producing child abuse material, and intentionally distributing an indecent image of another person in 2018, but was only given a 24-month Community Correction Order.
He claimed to have been “non-compliant” with his schizophrenia medication at the time of the offending, which he also blamed for setting his car on fire and falsely reporting it as stolen so he could make an insurance claim. He was charged with fraud but given a CCO and spared a conviction.
Brooks’ visa was cancelled in September 2025 on the basis he did not pass the character test, but ART senior member John Rau SC, the former Labor deputy premier of South Australia, decided to revoke the cancellation due to his “life-long ties to Australia”.
Mr Rau found that because Brooks had come to Australia as a child he has “virtually zero connection to the UK”, and determined he was a “very minor risk of reoffending”.
“I am satisfied that [Brooks’] offending, although very serious, was primarily an expression of his untreated mental illness, rather than any underlying predisposition to engage in criminal behaviour,” Mr Rau said in his judgement.
“I am satisfied that so long as [he] continues to engage with appropriate medical support, and has the support of his family, the prospect of him reoffending is minimal.”
Two other serious criminals were spared deportation in the last two weeks, and in late January Mr Rau restored the visa of a Sri Lankan immigrant with a long history of domestic violence who was jailed for three years over a dangerous driving crash that killed his mother and daughter.
Less than two weeks before that the tribunal allowed a Sudanese refugee who was jailed for the manslaughter of an Australian teenager to stay in the country.
Another 28 serious criminals have been spared deportation under the Direction 110 since Mr Burke cancelled the visa of South African national Matthew Gruter, who has no criminal record, for his political opinions on November 17 last year.
During the same period Mr Burke cancelled the visas of British war veteran Ryan Turner and a Ukrainian refugee for alleged linked to the now-disbanded National Socialist Network, and another UK national for allegedly espousing Nazi ideology on X, and owning swords with swastika symbology.
Header image credit: (Wesley Tingey on Unsplash).
