A 47-year-old man being sought in connection with the alleged abduction of five-year-old Sharon Granites has a long history of violence and prison time in the Northern Territory, the ABC can confirm.
NT Police have said they are gravely concerned for the whereabouts of Sharon, who they believe may have been abducted from an Alice Springs town camp over the weekend.
Police are also searching for Jefferson Lewis, who they have confirmed was recently released from prison, and was believed to be in the area around the time Sharon went missing.
Five-year-old Sharon Granites was last seen at 11:30pm on Saturday night, at her home in Old Timers town camp in Alice Springs. (Supplied: NT Police Force)
Acting NT Police Commander Mark Grieve said on Monday morning: “We do believe Sharon has been abducted, and we do believe Mr Jefferson may be able to provide us with some information in regards to that.”
Alice Springs 5yo believed to have been abducted
Acting Commander Grieve said Mr Lewis had been staying at a residence in the same town camp.
“He currently remains one of the few people who were in Old Timers camp at the time, and who has not made themselves known to police, nor have police been able to locate him at this point in time,” he said.
“We’re still trying to work out his movements since he got out of prison.
“We certainly know that he was in and around Old Timers camp, and that particular residence [on] Saturday afternoon into that evening.”
Images taken from body-worn police footage, taken in Old Timers camp when police attended an unrelated incident on Saturday evening, and supplied to the media show Mr Lewis in the community wearing a yellow shirt and army camouflage pants.
Jefferson Lewis was staying at Old Timers town camp in Alice Springs at the time of five-year-old Sharon Granites’s disappearance.
 (Supplied: NT Police Force)
The ABC has confirmed that over the past decade, Mr Lewis has been sentenced to more than five years in prison, for separate, serious violence-related offences.
Most recently, he served an 18-month sentence after he pleaded guilty in October 2024 to aggravated assault, engaging in conduct that contravened a domestic violence order, and breaching bail.
While already in prison, he was sentenced to a further three months for another count of engaging in conduct that contravened a domestic violence order, and for resisting police.
Earlier on, in 2022, he was sentenced to 11 months on separate aggravated assault charges, for which he served eight months and was then released on a good behaviour bond.
This photo of Jefferson Lewis at the town camp was taken on the night the five-year-old went missing. (Supplied: NT Police Force)
In 2018, Mr Lewis was sentenced to 19 months in prison, with a non-parole period of 14 months, on four counts including two charges of aggravated assault.
In 2016, he was sentenced to 12 months behind bars after pleading guilty to aggravated assault.
The ABC was unable to verify Mr Lewis’s criminal history earlier than that date.
The charges faced by Mr Lewis over the past decade do not appear to relate directly to dealings with children.
Mr Lewis is known to have links to a number of remote outback communities in the NT and WA.
A wide-scale police search for Sharon is currently under way near the Old Timers town camp in Alice Springs, with assistance from community members.
Police are urging anyone with information about Sharon’s disappearance or who may have knowledge of Mr Lewis’s whereabouts to come forward.