UK-born paedophile to be deported from Australia

A British-born paedophile, who has spent over thirty years in prison, is to be freed from prison in Australia and deported back to the UK.

Robert Excell, 66, who emigrated to Australia as a child, is being released from a Perth prison mainly because of health reasons. The condition of his release is that he returns to the UK.

Mr Excell was first jailed in 1965 for abusing a seven-year-old boy. He has since been paroled three times and reoffended on each occasion. He is reportedly regarded as one of Australia's worst child abusers and psychiatrists have said that he still poses a "moderate" threat of reoffending.

Previously, the state government in Western Australia had intervened to prevent a parole board from releasing Mr Excell. Western Australia attorney general Jim McGinty told a local radio station that he was not prepared to have Mr Excell released over there.

A Home Office spokesperson was reported as saying that any sex offenders deported to Britain would interviewed by Special Branch officers and that that any "relevant information" about the offender would be sent to police in the area where they were going to live.

Mr Excell will be put placed on the sex offenders' register when he arrives back in the UK.

(KMcA/SP)