Just six months after victims of the notorious North Shore Rapist warned he would offend again, Graham James Kay is back behind bars
Just six months after victims of the notorious North Shore Rapist warned he would offend again, Graham James Kay is back behind bars
Editorial
Updated February 23, 2025 — 6.51pmfirst published at 2.29pm
Well, wasn’t that entirely predictable? Just six months after victims of the notorious North Shore Rapist warned he would offend again, Graham James Kay is back behind bars.
Kay, one of Sydney’s worst sex offenders, was arrested on Friday for allegedly sexually touching a teenage girl in Sydney’s city centre. Police were called to a chemist on George Street about 6pm where they were told a 16-year-old girl had been allegedly assaulted by a man not known to her.
About 1am on Saturday, investigators and the riot squad executed a search warrant at a unit on Oxford Street in Blacktown, where a 73-year-old man was arrested. He was taken to Blacktown police station.
He did not appear on the video screen when his matter was briefly mentioned by a magistrate, and he will remain in custody until Monday, when the matter returns to the Downing Centre Local Court.
Kay committed a series of stalking and groping attacks on women and girls in the 1970s and 1980s, but was only given good behaviour bonds for every crime.
He escalated in the 1990s to sexual attacks on eight women and girls while armed with a knife – six rapes and two more attempts.
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He spent two decades in prison for the series of violent attacks and returned to the community in 2023 despite reoffending in 2018 and 2022. Again, he was given only a good behaviour bond for indecently assaulting a 16-year-old girl.
As the Herald’s Perry Duffin reports, Kay’s history of reoffending occurred despite his being subjected to extended supervision orders (ESO), which are designed to keep a short leash on the most dangerous offenders.
In 2018, Kay breached his ESO by approaching the 16-year-old girl working at a supermarket and giving her a “slobbery kiss” on the cheek. She was horrified, and it was media publicity that helped her realise the man who had attacked her was the infamous North Shore Rapist.
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In 2020, the State of NSW asked Justice Stephen Rothman to put Kay on a second ESO.
Despite Kay’s breaches in 2018, the state removed the requirement for Kay to provide his schedule of movements in the second ESO, although he would still wear an ankle monitor.
Kay offended again in 2022, while wearing the ankle monitor, by pursuing a woman through shopping centres, following her into her apartment building, and indecently assaulting her. Kay received a jail sentence this time, with a non-parole period of one year which was deemed too lenient by the appeal court, extending it to one year and eight months. Kay was granted parole.
He was placed on a third ESO in August last year, the details of which could be revealed only after the Herald fought the long-standing suppression order over his identity.
He was attempting to convince another judge not to force an ankle monitor onto his leg as part of his new ESO conditions.
But Kay lost on both counts after his survivors broke their silence and told the court about the impact his attacks had had on them since the late 1990s.
On Saturday, one of those survivors told the Herald she was crushed to learn her warnings were allegedly borne out. “This has to be the catalyst for harder laws,” she said.
The survivor urged the courts to “throw away the key” if Kay was found guilty.
The Herald agrees. While monitoring is not a fail-safe mechanism to prevent reoffending, a good place to start would be for our courts to hand out decent sentences to revolting offenders like Kay.
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