Get Mr Baldy Out Of Frankston North

Get the convicted and repeat offending pedophile away from civilisation, children, schools and people.

IF Victorian serial child sex offender Brian Keith Jones had been jailed in South Australia, the State Government would have kept him behind bars until he died. The hard line on law and order has become this Government's trademark. It will be remembered, more than anything, for overturning parole orders, challenging sentences and thumbing its nose at the conventions of the legal system.

At times, the Government has stepped perilously close to breaching the traditional separation of powers between elected government and the judiciary. But Premier Mike Rann can read opinion polls as well as anyone. This apparently tough law-and-order stance is publicly, and therefore politically, popular.

Brian Jones should be in prison. He is one of the most despicable people in Australia. Jones does not deserve liberty, yet the Victorian legal system has released him from prison. This is quite different from granting Jones his freedom. He is destined to be hounded to his grave by a remorseless and resentful public.

A brief reminder. Jones, also known as Brian John Megson, was nicknamed Mr Baldy after he abducted six boys, shaved their heads, dressed them in girls' clothes and sexually assaulted them. In 1981, he was given 32 years in jail which meant he could be held until 2013. But in 1989, he was paroled - and, three weeks later, he raped a nine-year-old boy and sexually abused the boy's younger brother. For that, he received a 14-year sentence which expires in August. The Victorian Labor Government released him on parole last month. Since then, his whereabouts have twice been exposed by concerned members of the public.

PROPOSED laws to keep Mr Baldy behind bars indefinitely were rejected by the Bracks Government last year. And it has emerged it could cost up to $1 million a year to keep the convicted child rapist in the community - compared with about $60,000 in jail.