“It is vigilantism to take the law into your own hands in this way,” Magistrate Leanne Scoines said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/869bcb335e828125944378af1912a223.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Outside court Mr Smith said he was unaware that posting photos from the registry online was against the law. (ABC News: Charlie McLean)<\/p>\n
The court heard that on January 2 a member of the public notified police a photo from the register was posted in a Facebook community group for the Laidley, Gatton and Lowood areas.<\/p>\n
Police prosecutor Felix Ladu read out Smith’s full post in court.<\/p>\n
“‘I have been suspended from other groups for the same post but this face needs to be recognised’,” he said.<\/p>\n
“‘He is scum and shouldn’t be living in our community.'”<\/p>\n
The court heard Smith published the photo five times in three different Facebook groups because content moderators kept taking them down.<\/p>\n
Smith’s lawyer said the incident was out of character for her client and that he was remorseful.<\/p>\n
“It was a misguided attempt to make the community aware of a reportable offender in their area,” she said.<\/p>\n
Magistrate Scoines said Smith should have thought about why information from the register is so sensitive.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/c0f902ffef91e265e8bab0e29b040729.png\")
<\/p>\n
Police were alerted to the post just days after the registry went live on December 31 last year.<\/p>\n
“The register maintains contact with people who’ve committed certain offences \u2026 and we want them to maintain contact with the register, we don’t want them to be pushed underground and lose contact with the register.<\/p>\n
“That makes the community more vulnerable.”<\/p>\n
Magistrate Scoines said Smith’s behaviour was “misplaced vigilantism”.<\/p>\n
“I think the penalty is appropriate to serve as a deterrence to you personally but also to the community that this Daniel’s [Law] site is a valuable resource but most not be misused,” she said.<\/p>\n
Smith was put on a good behaviour bond with a $700 recognisance which he must pay if he is found guilty or pleads guilty to any other offences during the term of the order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first person to be charged over misusing Queensland’s new child sex offender registry has been given a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[235590,209342,2973,788,68008,43,43669,68009,44,30025,94,701,41,39,42,40,235591],"class_list":["post-457451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-brian-allan-smith","tag-child-protection-register","tag-courts","tag-daniel","tag-daniels-law","tag-headlines","tag-ipswich","tag-morcombe","tag-news","tag-pedophile","tag-qld","tag-queensland","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-vigilante"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}