{"id":24331,"date":"2026-06-04T01:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/24331\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T01:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:55:08","slug":"paedophile-ex-magistrate-peter-liddy-released-from-prison-after-serving-25-year-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/24331\/","title":{"rendered":"Paedophile ex-magistrate Peter Liddy released from prison after serving 25-year sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notorious paedophile and former magistrate Peter Liddy has taken his first steps of freedom after serving a 25-year prison term for sexually abusing four children.<\/p>\n

Liddy was jailed in 2001 for sexual offending against four children between 1983 and 1986 while he was volunteering at the Brighton Surf Life Saving Club.<\/p>\n

He has been placed on an interim supervision order with strict conditions<\/a>, including home detention, while the South Australian government pursues an application to have him indefinitely detained.<\/p>\n

The 82-year-old’s release comes after the Supreme Court refused Liddy’s bid to shelve those proceedings.<\/p>\n

Despite questions from the media as he left the Adelaide Remand Centre his only words were “excuse me”.<\/p>\n

\"Notorious<\/p>\n

Peter Liddy was jailed in SA in 2001 for the sexual abuse of four children. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

The conditions of the interim supervision order include restricted internet access and a ban on contact with children, including a prohibition on going within 50 metres of any school, kindergarten of public playground.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Supreme Court heard the premises where Liddy would live were “currently being assessed”, but that there were “complexities” which could not be articulated in open court.<\/p>\n

Advocate for abuse survivors, lawyer Andrew Carpenter, said he felt for the victim-survivors “who thought this day should never come”.<\/p>\n

“They were shocked, they never thought that he would ever be the kind of person that would be released,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s not a happy day for the victim-survivors and it’s definitely a very dark day in South Australia.”\"A<\/p>\n

Andrew Carpenter says Liddy’s release marks a dark day for South Australia. (ABC News: Che Chorley)<\/p>\n

He said the victim-survivors were also “quite disheartened” that the government had not moved to keep Liddy indefinitely detained sooner.<\/p>\n

“[The victim-survivors] have been dealing with the trauma \u2014 for not just the 25-years he’s been in prison \u2014 but ever since they were children, when he first abused them,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a bit of a kick in the guts for them, especially the fact that he’s shown no remorse and still denies his offending.<\/p>\n

“That monster they’ve been avoiding all these years is now back on the loose.”<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Attorney-General Kyam Maher said there was “a special corner of hell reserved for people who have committed these sorts of crimes, especially when you consider the position he held \u2014 a serving magistrate”.<\/p>\n

\"South<\/p>\n

Attorney-General Kyam Maher said the government was doing everything possible to get Peter LIddy returned to jail. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)<\/p>\n

He said the government was pursuing its applications to have Liddy indefinitely detained, or placed on an extended supervision order<\/a> with “exceptionally” strict conditions.<\/p>\n

“As a government we are doing everything in our legal power to have Peter LIddy returned to jail,” he said.<\/p>\n

“In the alternative, if that’s not granted by the court, we have made an application \u2014 and we will be pursuing it \u2014 to have those strict conditions continue to apply.”<\/p>\n

‘High position of trust’<\/p>\n

Liddy was sentenced in September 2001, and was initially housed in high security at Yatala Labour Prison, before being moved to Mount Gambier Prison in 2011.<\/p>\n

His 25-year head sentence was understood to be the longest jail term imposed on a paedophile at the time.<\/p>\n

Liddy became eligible to apply for parole in 2019, but it has never been granted.<\/p>\n

He was the state’s longest-serving magistrate<\/a>, having also spent 25 years after being appointed to the bench when he was aged about 29.<\/p>\n

In sentencing, then-Supreme Court Justice Margaret Nyland said Liddy “occupied a high position of trust” at the time of his offending, which made his crimes “particularly serious”.<\/p>\n

“The community is entitled to expect the holder of such a responsible position to be vigilant in the care and protection of their children,” she said a the time.<\/p>\n

“Instead, you chose to exploit this important and in many ways privileged position.”<\/p>\n

In 2010, a second set of offences, allegedly involving an additional 10 child sex charges relating to five other victims between between 1969 and 1983 was\u00a0thrown out of court.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/p>\n

Peter Liddy was a serving magistrate at the time of his crimes. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Yesterday, SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said he was aware of a flyer circulating in regional South Australia which had warned of Liddy’s pending release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said the Department for Correctional Services was responsible for ensuring Liddy complied with the supervision order, but that SA police would “have a broader public safety role”.<\/p>\n

“If there are any concerns about the safety of other people in the community based on his conduct then we’ll be taking action,” he told 891 ABC Adelaide yesterday.<\/p>\n

He said there was no reason for concern currently, but said police “don’t tolerate vigilante activity”.<\/p>\n

“Equally, he has a lawful right under the circumstances to be within the community, so if there’s any threats or harm to him we’ll be obligated to take action in that regard,” he said.<\/p>\n

The government’s applications to have Liddy indefinitely detained, or placed on an extended supervision order, have a hearing scheduled in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Notorious paedophile and former magistrate Peter Liddy has taken his first steps of freedom after serving a 25-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[395,22613,22612,9956,6969,11703,22614,11700,10753,11698,8851,15783,12364,22603,22611],"class_list":["post-24331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-adelaide","tag-adelaide","tag-andrew-carpenter","tag-freedom","tag-home-detention","tag-jail","tag-magistrate","tag-margaret-nyland","tag-paedophile","tag-parole","tag-peter-liddy","tag-prison","tag-release","tag-sentence","tag-sex-offences","tag-supervision"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}