Child sex offender arrested in Sydney

A convicted child sex offender has been arrested at an ex-girlfriend's home in the
southern Sydney suburb of Menai.
Raymond Dean, also known as Raymond Warford, failed to return to his approved place
of residence outside Ararat Prison in western Victoria after visiting Melbourne for
a medical procedure, police said.
It's believed Warford slipped out the back door of a cafe at Fairfield, in the
city's inner north, when he left his corrections supervisor to go to the toilet.
Inspector Rod Hart of Sutherland police said Dean was arrested without incident at
about 6pm (AEDT), following a tip-off from Victorian police an hour earlier.
"He was found at the house of an associate of his. I believe it's an ex-girlfriend,"
Inspector Hart told AAP.
"We went to the address and he was in bed, asleep.
"It looks like he might have come up to Sydney on the train but we're not sure when
he got here.
"He didn't give us any problems.
"He's downstairs pacing around in his cell because he knows he's going back to
Victoria for a long time."
Dean will appear in the Sutherland Magistrates' Court on Friday, where Victorian
detectives are expected to apply for his extradition.
Earlier on Thursday, the head of Victoria's corrections regime refused to admit
there were serious cracks in the extended supervision order system, despite Dean's
escape.
Dean, who is intellectually impaired, had just received treatment at the Disability
Forensic Assessment Treatment Services centre in Fairfield and wanted lunch on a
nearby cafe strip, Station Street.
He escaped through the back door of a cafe after telling his supervisor he needed a
toilet break.
After five or six minutes, the female officer realised he had fled.
Dean, 36, has served his jail time but lives at a secure compound next to Ararat
prison under the conditions of his extended supervision order (ESO).
It is the second time Dean has fled while on an ESO.
He went missing in 2007 and was found at Crown Casino.
Dean subsequently was jailed for three months before being placed back on his ESO.
Corrections Victoria commissioner Bob Hastings said the department would launch a
review of the incident, but went on to say the officer supervising Dean had done
nothing wrong.
"The person that was with this particular person had done everything that was
required of them in terms of the supervision," he told reporters in Melbourne on
Thursday.
"The ESO system is working very well."
Dean is one of 34 sex offenders currently on ESOs, but some live in the community
rather than at Corella.
"They (people on ESOs) are not prisoners. They've actually done their time for the
crime," Mr Hastings said.
"We are managing them within a regime that says that we supervise them, but we
supervise them as community members.
"The supervisor is there to ... support them, to help them."
Mr Hastings said it was the offenders' responsibility to comply with the conditions
of ESOs, and the focus was on supporting those people rather than containing them.
He said Corrections Victoria was considering tracking people on ESOs with GPS
devices, but the technology had limitations.
"GPS will tell you where someone is, it doesn't necessarily tell you what they're
doing," he said.
"The other thing with GPS (tracking devices) is that you can cut them off."
Dean's ESO expires in 2016.
There have been three escapes, including Dean's two transgressions, since the ESO
system was introduced by the state government in 2005.
Both Mr Hastings and Det Insp Rankin refused to disclose the name of the cafe,
despite appealing for public help to find Dean.