{"id":91834,"date":"2025-08-24T07:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T07:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/91834\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T07:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T07:36:11","slug":"robert-kevin-mccullough-accused-child-sex-offender-faces-court-over-alleged-escape-from-custody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/91834\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Kevin McCullough: Accused child sex offender faces court over alleged escape from custody"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorney-General Tony Buti says he is not sure if an accused child sex offender was challenged by court staff when he allegedly gave them a false name before escaping from custody on Friday.<\/p>\n

Police arrested Robert Kevin McCullough, 39, on Saturday night, more than 24 hours after he allegedly managed to escape custody at the Central Law Courts in Perth.<\/p>\n

Mr McCullough appeared in Northbridge Magistrates Court on Sunday, and in a bizarre mumbling rant, said he was handed \u201cbail papers\u201d before his alleged getaway.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Tanya Watt told the accused he was \u201cpretending to be someone else on Friday\u201d before he managed to \u201cget out\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that refreshing your mind?\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

WA’s biggest courts and crime stories to your inbox<\/p>\n

Sign-up to our weekly newsletter for free<\/p>\n

Sign up<\/a><\/p>\n

The accused fugitive, who did not have a lawyer and was representing himself, told the court, \u201cI don\u2019t even know what I\u2019m doing\u201d when asked how he wanted to proceed with two new charges of stealing and escaping from lawful custody.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Watt remanded him in custody ahead of his next court appearance on September 19.<\/p>\n

\"RobertCamera IconRobert Kevin McCullough, who allegedly escaped from custody pictured in Stirling Gardens. Credit: WA Police\/WA Police<\/p>\n

At a press conference on Sunday, the Attorney-General said he was not sure if he was challenged by security staff when he allegedly gave \u201csomeone else\u2019s name to be able to escape custody\u201d, which he said was \u201cvery concerning\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously something went wrong and I am incredibly concerned about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, he is back in custody, and we will have a full investigation and make changes if needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if any staff members had been stood down over the incident, Mr Buti said \u201cit only happened on Friday\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the weekend, my main concern is to find out exactly what happened and make changes if they need to be made,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Police said Mr McCullough was arrested at 8.45pm on Saturday after he presented to Perth police station.<\/p>\n

Detective Superintendent Kellie Taylor, of the offender management division, on Saturday said Mr McCullough had initially faced court on Friday over \u201cserious sexual offences\u201d before being remanded in custody when he escaped.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still exploring the circumstances of how Mr McCullough left the Perth Central Law Courts. It\u2019s not believed that any level of violence was used in his escape and has more to do, we believe, with deceit and trickery,\u201d Supt Taylor said.<\/p>\n

Court documents show Mr McCullough is facing nine child sex offences, including four counts of indecent dealing with a child aged between 13 and under 16.<\/p>\n

He is also facing two counts of sexually penetrated a child over the age of 13 and under 16.<\/p>\n

The child sex offences were not read out during his court appearance on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Mr McCullough was captured on CCTV allegedly fleeing through Stirling Gardens and Elizabeth Quay after his escape.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorney-General Tony Buti says he is not sure if an accused child sex offender was challenged by court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,48,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-91834","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-crime","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-wa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91834","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=91834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}