An elderly UK man who served a prison sentence for sexually abusing his step granddaughter when she was nine years old has had his Australian visa reinstated by a tribunal because of his \u201cstrong ties to Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n
The man was sentenced to 14 months prison in the Western Australia<\/a> district court in February 2024 for molesting the girl in the presence of another child.<\/p>\n His permanent resident visa was automatically revoked under the Migration Act, which requires the immigration minister to cancel a person\u2019s visa due to sexual offences involving a child or a substantial criminal record.<\/p>\n In her impact statement, the victim said she had been ostracised from her family and suffered from anxiety, depression and poor sleep as a result of the assault. She said was unable to complete high school because of its effect.<\/p>\n The offender claims not to remember the incident but accepted the court\u2019s findings and was remorseful.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n In September last year, the man, who lives in Perth, successfully appealed against the decision at the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART).<\/p>\n The tribunal\u2019s deputy president, Simone Burford, said her decision was \u201cnot an easy one\u201d and the Australian community \u201cwould expect the applicant\u2019s visa to remain cancelled\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, there are factors limiting the likelihood of reoffending and the applicant has strong ties to Australia,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is of advanced age and suffers from serious health conditions requiring ongoing treatment and support. He has lived in Australia for decades and has no remaining ties in the United Kingdom.\u201d<\/p>\n The man has lived in Australia since his thirties, and has family, who all reside in Australia and remain in close contact with him.<\/p>\n The visa cancellation was made under Ministerial Direction 110, introduced by the government in 2024 to strengthen Australia\u2019s cancellation system<\/a> after a spate of cases of visa cancellations of non-citizens who had committed serious offences being overturned by an independent tribunal.<\/p>\n It states that protection of the Australian community is \u201cgenerally to be given greater weight than other primary considerations\u201d, suggesting the decision-maker retains a discretion to depart from safety as the paramount consideration.<\/p>\n The minister for home affairs, Tony Burke, submitted to the tribunal that the man\u2019s offending was \u201cunacceptable\u201d and he had engaged in \u201cfamily violence\u201d.<\/p>\n The man was also previously charged and acquitted of separate offences against to the stepson of his stepson, who was under the age of 13.<\/p>\n Burford conceded the man did not pass the character test under Ministerial Direction 110 which was \u201cclear that the expectation of the Australian community \u2026 would be that he would not be permitted to remain in Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n She also found there was a \u201clikelihood he will reoffend in a similar manner \u2026 lowered by the presence of substantial protective and deterrent factor\u201d.<\/p>\n But she said this was outweighed by the fact he had lived in the community for most of his life and had \u201cclose family ties\u201d in Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cFour of his minor step grandchildren in Australia would be affected by the decision and it is in their best interest that the cancellation is revoked,\u201d she found.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is elderly and in poor physical health, suffering from multiple serious medical conditions requiring high level of ongoing care and treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n Burke has the power to set aside the ART\u2019s decision and re-cancel the visa under the Migration Act if he deems it in the national interest.<\/p>\n It is understood the department is preparing a brief to allow an assistant minister to consider cancellation of the man\u2019s visa.<\/p>\n In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An elderly UK man who served a prison sentence for sexually abusing his step granddaughter when she was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-595310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595310","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=595310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}