Warning: This story contains details that some readers may find disturbing or distressing.
Convicted sex offender and murderer Terrence Leary has been granted parole for a second time, 11 years after committing a brutal attack on a woman while released.
Leary was on parole in 2013 when he dragged a 30-year-old woman behind a bus stop in Hunters Hill before stabbing her in the neck. A passer-by then intervened.
He pleaded guilty to recklessly causing actual bodily harm with intent to have sexual intercourse with the woman while on parole.
He had already served 22 years for the murder of teenager Vanessa Hoson in 1990 when he was released in 2013.
He broke into 17-year-old Hoson’s home in Kenthurst and bashed her to death with a hammer when she refused to have sex with him.
He was out on bail just 10 months before he attacked again.
Leary was sentenced to a maximum 15 years in jail after for recklessly causing actual bodily harm with intent to have sexual intercourse, with the possibility of parole in 2024.
Today, the NSW State Parole Authority granted him parole a second time.
Leary will be electronically monitored 24/7 and will live in a Corrective Services NSW-supported facility.
The parole board said the offender’s release would not put the community in danger.
”In the Authority’s view, on the information presently available to it, the offender’s release on supervised parole is conducive to the safety of the community,” the NSW State Parole Authority said.
“The alternative is to keep the offender in custody and release him at some later point in time, either with a shorter period of parole supervision or at the end of his sentence with.”
“The offender will be released at some point…that is inevitable.
“It is far better for the offender’s reintegration into the community, and for the community in general, for him to be closely supervised, than to be released in the absence of any supervision at all.”
Other conditions of his release include not being able to contact or harass the victim or victims’ family, staying out of Hawkesbury City Council and Port Stephens and complying with the Child Protection Register.
His Parole order remains in place until June 28, 2028.