4 hours ago
2
A Perth court has heard for the first time the horrifying details of how a WA man took two little boys from their beds while they were sleeping in a rural WA town in 2023, leading a judge to compare the offence to that of abducted four-year-old Cleo Smith.
Jonathan Richard Anthony, 36, was sentenced in Perth District Court on Friday over the incident that saw him don a wig and a mask before entering the home of a neighbour in the early hours of the morning to lift an eight-year-old boy out of his bed.
The man was sentenced Perth’s District Court.Credit: Elliahn Blenkinsop
Anthony took the child back to his home and told him to stay there, or he would kill him, before going back for his 12-year-old brother.
The court heard the older boy resisted as Anthony half carried and half walked him out of the house in the early hours of March 31, eventually escaping and raising the alarm.
The police and a small community came together to search the boy who was located three hours later in Anthony’s house after they heard him screaming, “help me, help me, I’m in here”.
In that time Anthony had plied the child with beer and then taken a photo of his naked buttocks. When the boy begged to go to the bathroom he was told no and that he could “just p--- himself”.
The entire interaction was captured on CCTV cameras Anthony had installed in his own house, later watched by sentencing judge Seamus Rafferty.
“This was every parent’s worst nightmare,” he said.
“I can see from that boy’s face just how terrified he is.
“It would have been an unbelievably terrifying ordeal for the child … the impact would be significant on that feeling of safety and feeling vulnerable and the parents who would have felt they did not properly protect their children.”
Loading
State prosecutors told the court it was like something “straight from the movies or a TV show” as the case was compared to that of the abduction of Cleo Smith who was taken from a campsite near Carnarvon in November 2021.
Terrence Kelly was sentenced to over 13 years in jail for the four-year-old’s abduction after she was found alive by police 18 days after she disappeared.
On Friday, Rafferty told the court it would be “an affront to justice” not to sentence Anthony to a term of imprisonment over the incident, despite hearing that he was suffering from schizophrenia and the effects of Cannabis and butane abuse leading to a psychosis.
Anthony, who later pleaded guilty to seven charges in relation to the incident, told police that he was in the middle of a paranoid delusion and believed aliens were everywhere and that he needed to save the children.
He was then charged with two counts of person who forcibly/fraudulently detains a child, one count of deprivation of liberty, two counts of aggravated burglary, one count of disguising to commit a crime and one count of indecently recording a child.
He was sentenced to a total of eight years in prison, backdated to March 2023, when he was arrested, and will be eligible for parole in March 2029.
A lifetime restraining order was also granted to protect both of the boys from Anthony.
Most Viewed in National
Loading
