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Beaumont Lead 'Discounted'

Tasmania's top policeman believes he may know who abducted the Beaumont children from Adelaide 39yrs ago today.
Commissioner Richard McCreadie claimed yesterday Tasmanian prisoner James O'Neill could be the man resposible for kidnapping the three Beaumont children on Australia Day in 1966.
But the officer in charge of South Austrlaia's major crime investigations, Det-Supt Peter woite, said O'Neill was recently interviewed by SAPOL invesigators inn Tasmania and had been "discounted from our enquiries". "No evidence was found to support this person's involvement in the disappearance of the Beaumont children," he said. "While our investigation remains active on this matter, this person has been discounted from our inquiries."
The Beaumont cildren- Jane,9, Arna,7 and Grant,4- disappeared from near Glenlg Beach in 1966. Mr McCreadie believes O'Neill, 57, has murdered more children than the one he was convicted of killing in Tasmania in 1975.
"He's got a real lust for kiddies. He's a multiple murderer," Mr McCreadie said.
O'Neill is wanted in Victoria on 12 charges involving the abduction and sexual assault of four boys.

AAP (26-1-2005)

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Victim Of Rape Tells Of Horror

ONE of four boys child killer James O'Neill abducted and raped in Victoria relived the nightmare attack yesterday.
Mark — who asked not to be identified — was 10 when O'Neill kidnapped him and held him prisoner for several hours.
He had been told O'Neill was dead so was shocked to read in the Herald Sun this week the man is alive and was recently interviewed by police over the disappearance of the Beaumont children in 1966, but then ruled out as a suspect.
"It brought it all back to me, what that bastard did," Mark said.
He was disgusted to hear O'Neill, 57, was doing it easy on a Tasmanian prison farm and has been applying for parole.
Although a convicted murderer, O'Neill has been allowed to go fishing alone and was in charge of the prison worm farm.
"That's sick. He should be doing it hard after what he did to me and all those other children," Mark told the Herald Sun. "He certainly should never be allowed out, and I will be writing to the Parole Board in Tasmania to say so."
O'Neill is serving a life sentence in Tasmania after being charged with murdering in 1975 nine- year-olds Ricky John Smith and Bruce Colin Wilson. There are warrants out for 0'Neill's arrest in Victoria because he skipped bail and fled the state after being charged with abducting and sexually assaulting four boys in 1971.
Mark was one of those boys. He was walking near his home in Ferntree Gully about 8pm on January 15, 1971, when 0'Neill pulled up alongside him in his car and asked for directions to the Puffing Billy tourist train.
O'Neill persuaded Mark to get in and show him where Puffing Billy was.
"I pointed it out but he kept driving.
"I said'what's going on, where are you taking me?' and he said not to worry we were just going for a drive," Mark said.
"We ended up in Gembrook in a side track off a dirt road, I kept begging to be taken home.
"He started molesting me in the car, sexually. Being a kid, I was terrified. Then he tied my hands up with his belt, got out of the car and got a blanket out of the boot and put it on the ground.
"Then he grabbed me out of the car and threw me down on the blanket. He then sexually assaulted me repeatedly, in all sorts of ways. That continued for hours."
O'Neill later dumped Mark on a dirt track in the early hours of the following morning and he walked to safety.
Mark said now he Knows O'Neill went on to kill other children only four years later he realises how lucky he is to be alive.
"It could easily have been me," he said.
"During the attack he warned me several times that if I ever told anybody about it he would kill me."
Tasmanian police commissioner Richard McCreadie this week told the Herald Sun he believed O'Neill could be responsible for several child murders around Australia. before his arrival in Tasmania in 1974.
He said children had disappeared from areas O'Neill was tracked to.
Mr McCreadie said Queensland police questioned O'Neill about a missing girl and detectives from Adelaide had come over to quiz him about the Beaumonts.
"He's got a real lust for kiddies. There were certainly four or five around Australia that just disappeared," he said.
"There was certainly the girl in Queensland. certainly the Beaumont children. He's killed plenty of other people.
"He's a multiple murderer and if he stops in jail for the rest of his life we will be well served.
"He would kill other kids, there is no doubt in the world, if he gets out."

Herald Sun (29-1-2005)
Keith Moor

Child Killer Seeks Second Chance

A CHILD killer charged with abducting and raping four Victorian boys is making a bid for freedom, saying he deserves a second chance.
Pedophile and killer James Ryan O'Neill, formerly Leigh Anthony Bridgart, has been in a Tasmanian jail since 1975. He now plans to seek parole, saying he should not be persecuted 30 years after his conviction.
Victoria Police may extradite O'Neill, 57, from Tasmania to face charges over four boys he is said to have abducted and raped in rural Victoria in 1971.
He fled Victoria for Tasmania after being charged, changing his name.
He abducted and murdered Ricky John Smith, 9, in Tasmania in 1975.
O'Neill was also charged with the murder of another boy, Bruce Colin Wilson, 9, but the charges were discontinued after he received a life sentence for murdering Ricky.
One of Tasmania's longest-serving and most hated prisoners, O'Neill applied unsuccessfully for parole in 1991.
He now plans to apply for parole again and has written to The Mercury in Hobart, complaining that attempts were being made to keep him in jail through "trial by media".
"He instructs us that he believes it is totally irresponsible and grossly unfair that he is being persecuted 30 years after his conviction, " his solicitor, Benedict Bartl, said in a letter.
"He believes he has served his time and deserves a second chance if the parole board deems him suitable for release."
One of the Victorians allegedly assaulted by O'Neill, "Mark", said there had been discussions with police to have him brought back to Victoria to face the courts.
Mark said he also planned to give the Tasmanian parole board details of O'Neill's alleged actions in Victoria and hoped he would get a chance to confront him at a hearing.
"The detectives are looking into what they are going to do," he said.
"He should never be released.
"I blame the judge who then (in 1971) released him on bail. He changed his name, went to Tasmania and started killing. "He got life imprisonment and as far as I am concerned the bastard can die there."
Mark has also had talks with Tasmanian Police Commissioner Richard McCreadie, who told two documentary makers that O'Neill was a "cold-blooded, psychopathic, prolific liar" who had no remorse, emotion or guilt.
Documents were tendered during O'Neill's failed 1991 parole board hearing showing that Victoria Police planned to push ahead with the 12 outstanding charges.
No comment could be obtained yesterday on whether O'Neill would be returned to Victoria if he was paroled.
The documentary that propelled O'Neill back into the spotlight, The Fisherman, by journalist Janine Widgery and former police detective Gordon Davie, will be shown on ABC at 8.30pm on April 28.
It has already been delayed several times to avoid clashing with any parole board hearing.
The date of the hearing, if decided, has not been publicly released.

AAP (18-4-2005)
Ellen Whinnett

Child Murderer Begins Parole Case

TASMANIA'S longest serving prisoner, child killer James O'Neill, is expected to appear before the parole board tomorrow.
O'Neill was sentenced to life in jail for the murder of a nine-year-old boy at Taranna on the Tasman Peninsula in 1975.
He is applying for parole after serving 30 years in jail.
Tomorrow's appearance before the three-member board is the first step in the parole process and unlikely to result in any decision being made.
It is likely the application will be adjourned to a later date while reports are prepared.
O'Neill returned to the public eye earlier this year after a documentary titled The Fishermen was made and screened at the Roaring 40s film festival in Hobart.
The documentary follows former Victorian detective Gordon Davie as he interviews O'Neill at Hayes Prison Farm and probes his past.
The ABC had been due to screen the documentary last month but pulled it at the last minute after the Supreme Court in Hobart granted orders barring the airing of certain material O'Neill says defames him.
O'Neill is suing the ABC, Mr Davie and the producers of the documentary, Roar Film, for defamation.
The ABC has appealed against the orders preventing it from screening the material.
Since it was revealed that O'Neill was applying for parole, the sister of the murdered boy and a man who was picked up by O'Neill as a child have spoken out.
They have called for O'Neill to never be released from jail.
But O'Neill, through his lawyers, has asked for a second chance.
He said he believed he was being subjected to "trial by media" and that he was being persecuted 30 years after his conviction. O'Neill has been described as a model prisoner.
He made an unsuccessful application for parole in 1991.
During that application the parole board was told O'Neill had outstanding charges dating back to 1971 relating to alleged abductions of boys in Victoria.
O'Neill was convicted of murdering Ricky John Smith, who was also known as Ricky Kube.

The Mercury (26-5-2005)
Gavin Lower

Child Killer Could Avoid Old Charges

A child killer wanted for allegedly abducting and raping four young boys could avoid facing the charges.
James Ryan O'Neill, 57, skipped bail after being charged with attacking the four boys in rural Victoria in 1971.
He has spent the past 30 years in a Tasmanian jail for the murder of a nine-year-old Tasmanian boy in 1975 and is now seeking parole.
At least one of his alleged victims in Victoria wants him to face court over the incidents, and the charges are still current.
Police are concerned the amount of time that has passed since the original charges were laid would damage their case in court.
Ironically, they were not able to bring O'Neill back to Victoria to face the charges any earlier because he was incarcerated in another state.
If no charges can be continued in Victoria, O'Neill is likely to go free, although he will face tough parole restrictions if the Parole Board of Tasmania decides to release him. His hearings has been adjourned to a date to be fixed while reports are prepared.
The Victorian Office Of Public Prosecutions will be asked to provide advice on the likelihood of the charges succeeding if the matters involving the four Victorian boys continues in court.
Supt John Whitmore, from the Violent Crime Investigation Unit, confirmed Victoria Police were monitoring O'Neill's parole application in Tasmania.
"If he does get parole and people do want to pursue it, we would look at it, even though there are considerable difficulties," Supt Whitmore said.
"The passage of time and legal matters are the issues but if people (the complainants) want to pursue it then we would re-investigate it."
At least one of O'Neill's alleged victims, "Mark", wants the case to go ahead, saying O'Neill ought to die in jail.
Formerly known as Leigh Anthony Bridgart, O'Neill was charged in 1971 with abducting and raping four boys, aged about 10.
"He should never be released," Mark said.

Herald Sun (7-6-2005)
Ellen Whinnett

Longest Serving Prisoner Denied Parole

TASMANIA'S longest-serving prisoner has failed in his bid for parole.
Convicted child killer James O'Neill, who is Tasmania's longest-serving prisoner, applied for parole last month.
But the parole board today ruled he was ineligible for consideration.
Parole Board of Tasmania chairman Chris Webster said the board had received advice from Solicitor-General William Bale QC which said life prisoners who were sentenced before the advent of fixed terms had no right to apply for parole.
Mr Webster said the board had refused to consider the application until O'Neill, 57, applied for resentencing. This is the second time O'Neill has unsuccessfully applied for parole since receiving a life sentence in 1975.
O'Neill was convicted of murdering nine-year-old Ricky John Smith, born Ricky Kube, on the Tasman Peninsula.
He was also charged with the murder of another nine-year-old boy but those charges were discontinued after he received a life sentence.
Victoria Police told his first parole hearing O'Neill had outstanding charges relating to four boys he allegedly abducted and raped in 1971.
O'Neill has been in the minimum-security Hayes Prison Farm since 1991 and has been described as a model prisoner.
He was propelled back into the spotlight last month when he prevented the ABC from screening a documentary in which he was interviewed by former Victorian detective Gordon Davie.

AAP (24-6-2005)
Robyn Grace

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