Thanks to apparently divine intervention, there’s one less paedophile to trouble the world.
Benjamin Charles Jones, 47, was a man who raped a little girl in Germany, and tried to rape multiple women in Australia, after serving his sentence in Germany and being deported back to Australia, where he immediately set about preying on women. After being jailed in Victoria – in a women’s prison, where the female inmates’ complaints were studiously ignored – he slithered off in secret to NSW and went into hiding. Until he tried to rape another woman, in Sydney. And got the softest of pats on the wrist as ‘punishment’, although at least he was rightly put in a men’s prison this time.
Jones was jailed for three years and four months over the attack and ordered to serve at least two years.
After a 25 per cent reduction for an early guilty plea and credit for time already served, Jones had been eligible for parole from November 21. The hearing was scheduled for November 12.
Then a higher authority intervened.
A transgender paedophile rapist who was days away from a parole hearing that could have seen them released back into the community has been found dead in a prison cell […]
A Corrective Services NSW spokeswoman said no other person was involved in the death.
‘On Friday 30 October 2026, a 49-year-old died at Cooma Correctional Centre,’ the spokeswoman said.
Jones, who identified as transgender after he got caught for being a predator, and used she/they pronouns, had recently been sentenced after following a young female tourist through Sydney’s CBD and attempting to rape her in October 2024.
This was not his first offence. Jones had previously been jailed for the attempted rape of a woman walking home from dinner in Melbourne in 2021. He had also served seven years in jail in Germany for sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl and was placed on a child sex offenders register after being deported back to Australia in 2018. CCTV footage from the October 2024 attack showed him following the 31-year-old tourist through Sydney’s CBD after she left a nightclub. The court heard he followed her through Hyde Park before dragging her into a secluded corner near St Mary’s Cathedral and trying to rape her.
Jones shoved a plastic object into the woman's mouth to muffle her screams and tried to remove both their own pants and hers.
‘I want to f*** you, just let me f*** you,’ Jones told her.
The woman managed to escape during the struggle and sought help from passers-by.
The woman managed to escape during the struggle and sought help from passers-by. Jones was later arrested after his DNA was found beneath the woman’s fingernails and on her clothing. He pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault without consent and one count of stalking. In her victim impact statement, the woman said the attack had shattered her sense of safety. Before the assault, she had felt able to walk freely without fear or intimidation.
The court also heard Jones had been released into the community just weeks before the Hyde Park attack following breaches of reporting obligations, despite police warning that he was a “significant risk” to the public. According to court documents, he had delayed informing police of his move from Victoria to NSW. He also provided false information about his new living arrangements.
“Since arrival in NSW, the accused has been difficult to locate and reported not to have a mobile phone,” court documents stated.
Jones received a 12-month community corrections order for breaching his reporting conditions. During the recent sentencing, NSW District Court Judge Troy Anderson took into account Jones’ mental health issues, drug abuse and reported threats from other inmates. Since his arrest, he had spent almost two years in protective isolation due to threats from other prisoners, a circumstance the judge said meant any period of custody would “weigh more heavily” on him.
Well… good.
A parole hearing had been scheduled for next Thursday to decide his fate. That hearing will no longer be necessary, thanks to what appears to be divine intervention.
The community, meanwhile, has one fewer predator who was days from walking free.
