Australia's youngest killer was let back out. It took less than a month for him to reoffend.

While the nation remains gripped by Netflix's horrifying crime drama Adolescence, another teenage killer is back in the news.

The now 38-year-old man — who can only be identified as 'SLD' for legal reasons — earned the infamy of being Australia's youngest killer after being convicted of the 2001 kidnapping and murder of Central Coast toddler Courtney Morley-Clarke. He was just 13 years old at the time. 

After being released on March 15, he is again behind bars after being charged with four counts of breaching his extended supervision order and possessing child abuse material. 

Watch: Australia's youngest killer set to be released back into the community.

That he was allowed the opportunity to reoffend in the first place reflects an egregious breakdown of the system that is meant to keep children safe. 

SLD's original crime was one of the most disturbing in the country's history.  In a time before social media, without a 24-hour news cycle, the horrific nature of the attack was enough to send currents of shock across Australia.

In a middle-class neighbourhood, the discovery that three-year-old Courtney's tiny, naked body had been so brutally discarded in a patch of long grass was awful enough. The fact that it had been done by a 13-year-old boy — was unfathomable.

In the intervening decades, while it was doubtless little comfort to Courtney's grieving family, the knowledge that her killer had been jailed for 20 years provided some sense of justice in the wider community. 

But after his sentence expired in 2021, fears surrounding his release began to resurface. 

In a rare move, a court handed down post-sentence detention orders, based on reports of his severe institutionalisation, stunted maturity and threats of violence. 

Two years later, in 2023, SLD was released into the community on bail, where over the course of three months he reportedly approached over 200 women, several with young children. 

After approaching and speaking to a woman who was dressing her young child on the beach — an act that was in breach of his release conditions and took place while SLD was being supervised by an NDIS worker — the predator was arrested and returned to prison.

Last month, in spite of the state's request to the NSW Supreme Court to detain him for another year based on fears for community safety, Justice Mark Ierace dismissed the application and released the murderer under an extended supervision order.

Recidivism rates for violent criminals released on parole or under supervision orders in Australia are high. A report conducted by Victoria's Sentencing Advisory Council in 2016 found the younger a child was when they were sentenced to prison, the more likely they were to reoffend. 

The report examined the sentencing of over 5000 young people sentenced across 2008 and 2009, including 115 who were sentenced to a youth attendance order or a youth justice centre order, which are the two most serious options available to the Children's Court for 15 to 20-year-old offenders.

Of these 115 offenders, 83 per cent reoffended, 79 per cent continued into the adult criminal jurisdiction, and 53 per cent were sentenced to a term of immediate adult imprisonment within the six years following their 2008–09 sentence.

A number of violent crimes over the past decade have been committed by offenders who were either on bail or parole. 

Jill Meagher, the Melbourne woman killed on her way home from work drinks in September 2022, was raped and murdered by Adrian Bayley, who was on parole — and bail — for a series of other violent rapes.

17-year-old Masa Vukotic was murdered in 2015 by Sean Christian Price while he was out under a supervision order.

Every time, we ask the same question: how can the system better protect the innocent?

Perhaps, had the murder of Courtney Morley-Clarke occurred today, the conversation would also have included the ways in which the system failed her killer. 

He was, after all, a child — barely a teenager — who had reportedly experienced significant trauma in his early life. With the growing body of research on how early trauma can disrupt normal development, maybe there would have been more questions asked about how such violence could go unnoticed.

Had the case been heard in court today, perhaps there would have been more debate over whether a prison or a psychiatric facility would be best placed to detain a child capable of such brutality.

What side of that debate would succeed — or even should—- is unknowable.

But what is unequivocal is that Courtney Morely-Clarke was murdered, and in allowing her killer to walk free, the system has most definitely failed her. It has failed her family, and it has failed the people who fought so hard to warn the courts that this person was not safe to release into the community. 

The complexities of the justice system inarguably make cases like this one, where a sentence has expired, difficult to navigate. Yet a series of violent offences while incarcerated, as well as repeated breaches of the supervision orders intended to help SLD 'reintegrate' into society, have proven his risk to the community is too great. 

He may have been Australia's youngest killer, but he is now an adult who has repeatedly shown he is a danger to children. 

We can only hope that the next time a court has to decide how, when or if to release such a violent offender into the community, the decision is made with those children — and particularly Courtney Morley-Clarke — in mind.

Feature: Getty.