A man who repeatedly raped his own 5 year old daughter, filmed himself doing it, and sent the footage to an overseas paedophile is now suing the Victorian Labor government over conditions in the women's prison the same government placed him in.

The offender, anonymised in court records as Hilary Maloney, was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria on 26 August 2024 to a head sentence of 4 years and 9 months, with a non parole period of 2 years and 6 months. He's being held at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, one of Victoria's two women only prisons. On 13 March 2026, the Herald Sun reported he's preparing legal action against the government over his treatment there.

The lawsuit is the latest twist in a case that already exposed how Andrews era Labor sentencing laws, the Allan government's prison placement policy, a federal sentencing loophole Albanese Labor refuses to close, and a separate 2022 sexual assault case the Victorian government quietly settled, all sit on top of each other.

What he did

Maloney was identified through United States police intelligence in September 2023 after American investigators flagged him as the source of child abuse material depicting a girl aged between 2 and 5. Further investigation identified the victim as his own daughter, born in April 2018.

Between 2 May and 3 June 2023, across at least 19 occasions, he produced 77 files of his daughter being abused. The breakdown in evidence was 64 images and 13 videos. Every file was sent via Discord to a US user the court named as Samuel Booth, who used the handle Bulthax. The court accepted Maloney was in an online "master/slave" arrangement with Booth.

A search warrant was executed at Maloney's home on 15 September 2023. His mobile phone was seized and forensically examined. The 77 files were recovered from the device.

Throughout the offending, Maloney was living in the same home as the daughter and her mother, his ex partner.

In her sentencing remarks, County Court Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis said Maloney produced material depicting his daughter "in various stages of nudity with a focus on her genitals and anal region." The judge said the child was awake during some of the offending and that she "said she did not like what you were doing."

The sentence and the federal loophole

The state head sentence is 4 years and 9 months, with a non parole period of 2 years and 6 months. The standard sentence for the lead state offence alone is 10 years. The maximum is 25.

On the two Commonwealth charges, the production and transmission of child abuse material via a carriage service, the federal Coalition has stated the court imposed just 6 months before Maloney becomes eligible for release. Those charges carry maximum penalties of 15 years each. The 6 month release eligibility on the federal counts is a recognizance release order, the mechanism the federal Coalition has been trying to abolish for serious child sex offences.

The two doors the judge used to cut the sentence

Karapanagiotidis cut the sentence on two grounds, both built into Victorian law.

The first was gender dysphoria. The judge accepted that Maloney's gender dysphoria, along with depression, reduced his moral culpability. She also accepted he'd face "additional hardship" in custody as a trans woman, and concluded he was "highly unlikely" to reoffend "unless she finds herself in a similar situation, being pressured or coerced."

The second was alleged manipulation by an overseas adult. Booth was an American on Discord. He had no physical proximity to Maloney, no legal authority over him, and no documented threats of violence on the court record. Karapanagiotidis accepted the framing anyway. Her ruling: "Given Booth's manipulation and coercion and your vulnerabilities, you were much less able to make objectively the right and healthy choices."

The court relied on a report from forensic psychiatrist Dr Rajan Darjee, who told the court Maloney's offending "aligned with patterns seen in female perpetrators" because Maloney "identified and lived" as a woman. Darjee said Maloney would not need "specific interventions to prevent further sexual offending," denied any paraphilic disorder, and dismissed the need for sex offender treatment. Karapanagiotidis accepted Darjee's report.

The judge also applied the Bugmy Bar Book principles, the Victorian handbook for factoring trauma history into sentencing.

Both doors are open because Victorian sentencing law was written to leave them open.

Andrews Labor wrote the framework

The Sentencing Amendment (Sentencing Standards) Act 2017 was passed by the Daniel Andrews Labor government and commenced on 1 February 2018. It set the standard sentence for persistent sexual abuse of a child under 16 at 10 years.

That 10 year figure isn't a minimum. The Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council describes the standard sentence as a "guidepost" indicating where in the range of seriousness an offence sits. Judges are required to take it into account. They aren't required to apply it. The Court of Appeal confirmed in December 2019 that the standard sentence operates as guidance, not as a floor.

Karapanagiotidis went from a 10 year guidepost to 4 years and 9 months by applying the Verdins principles, the 2007 Victorian case law that allows mental impairment to reduce moral culpability, soften deterrence and acknowledge custodial hardship. Verdins is binding case law. Only the Victorian parliament can narrow it by statute. The Andrews and now Allan Labor governments haven't done so.

The 2022 Tarrengower payout

In February 2026 the Herald Sun revealed that a female prisoner had been sexually assaulted by a trans identifying male murderer at Tarrengower, Victoria's minimum security women's prison, in 2022. The Andrews then Allan Labor government quietly settled with the female victim. Taxpayer money. No criminal charges were laid against the male offender. The settlement was confidential and was only exposed by the Herald Sun nearly four years after the assault.

Women's Forum Australia CEO Rachael Wong put the point directly: "The Government knew in 2022 that a woman had been sexually assaulted by a male prisoner in a women's prison and yet, years later, it is still allowing male offenders to be housed in women's prisons."

The Allan Labor government had documented evidence, by 2022, that placing male bodied offenders in women's prisons had produced the sexual assault of a female inmate. They paid the victim to keep it quiet. They didn't change the policy. They then used the same policy to place Maloney in a women's prison.

The state funded the trans prison program

The Daily Mail Australia has reported that the Victorian government provided more than $100,000 to a trans prison program that assisted Maloney to serve his sentence in a women's prison. The state legislated the framework, funded the mechanism that enabled the placement, then settled the prior victim out of court.

Three Victorian Labor Attorneys-General have overseen the policy that permits male bodied offenders in women's prisons across the period covered by both cases. Jill Hennessy, Jaclyn Symes and Sonia Kilkenny. This isn't an isolated decision by an individual minister. It's sustained Labor policy across multiple Attorneys-General.

Erdogan acts only after pressure

Maloney's placement at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre falls under Corrections Victoria's Commissioner's Requirements, which set out, as a guiding principle, that a prisoner should be imprisoned in the prison of their gender rather than their sex assigned or assumed at birth. The same policy allows exceptions where an inmate's record points to a history of sexual or physical violence.

Premier Jacinta Allan initially declined to comment on the placement and referred questions to Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan, who also avoided specifics, declining to say whether Maloney would be moved or whether the placement policy had been correctly applied.

After Women's Forum Australia's campaign and questions from Liberal MLC Beverley McArthur and Libertarian MLC David Limbrick, Erdogan ordered Corrections Victoria to strengthen protections for female inmates. The order contradicted the Premier's earlier dismissals. The policy still allows male bodied offenders to be placed in women's prisons. The lever exists. The minister has half pulled it.

Albanese Labor is blocking the federal fix

On 27 October 2025, the federal Coalition under Sussan Ley introduced the Crimes Amendment (Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Child Sexual Abuse) Bill 2025 in the federal parliament. The Bill does three things:

  • It imposes a 5 year mandatory minimum sentence for serious Commonwealth child sexual abuse offences.
  • It imposes a 6 year mandatory minimum for repeat offenders.
  • It closes the recognizance release order loophole that has allowed some Commonwealth offenders to be released after serving a fraction of their sentence.

The Coalition's official statement, released on 28 October 2025, names the Maloney case as the catalyst. It states that on the two Commonwealth charges, the court imposed "just six months prison before being eligible for release," for the production and transmission of child abuse material involving his own daughter.

Labor blocked an attempt to introduce the Bill in an earlier sitting period. The Coalition reintroduced it on 27 October 2025. As of late October 2025, Albanese Labor is still refusing to support it.

In the House debate on 9 October 2025, a Coalition speaker put the case to Labor in plain terms: "When a monster abuses a five-year-old child, yet is then free to roam the streets of Victoria when that poor child hasn't even turned eight, that is not justice, it is a betrayal."

Labor's stated reason for blocking the Bill is judicial discretion. The Law Council of Australia agrees with Labor's position. That's the same argument Labor used in 2017, when then shadow justice minister Clare O'Neil opposed Coalition mandatory minimums on the grounds they could create "unintended consequences."

Parliament weighs in

Two parliaments have now sat with this case.

In the Victorian Parliament on 16 October 2025, Liberal Western Victoria MP Beverley McArthur told the chamber her constituents were "furious" and laid out what the court had heard: "77 child abuse files, including 64 images and 13 videos; and a five-year-old daughter whose body was abused and innocence was stolen." She compared the sentence to what was available: "Under current sentencing guidelines, Maloney's crimes received a maximum of 25 years, but under our weak sentencing guidelines, Maloney will serve only a maximum of 4¾ years, and at the moment, 2½ years, behind bars." McArthur said Maloney belonged in "a male prison" and accused the Premier and the Corrections Minister of playing "a game of political volleyball" on the placement.

In the federal parliament, Liberal MP Jason Wood made the political position blunt on social media: "So, I've got an idea that Labor should consider. Maybe don't put biological men in female prisons?"

The lawsuit

The lawsuit Maloney is now preparing against the Victorian government, reported by the Herald Sun on 13 March 2026, comes after his counsel argued in court that he had spent 13 months in solitary confinement and was "a vulnerable individual who does not pose a threat to other prisoners." The lawsuit reframes the same solitary period as a wrong done to him by the state, rather than a protective measure by the state in response to his offending.

The same Labor government that legislated the sentencing framework, funded the trans prison program, settled the 2022 Tarrengower victim out of court, placed Maloney in the women's prison, and now faces the lawsuit is the government that has the levers to fix any of it. None of them have been pulled.

What needs to change

The reform path is mapped:

  • Federally, Albanese Labor needs to stop blocking the Crimes Amendment (Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Child Sexual Abuse) Bill 2025. Passing the Bill alone fixes the 6 month commonwealth release eligibility issue.
  • In Victoria, the Allan Labor government can legislate to convert the standard sentence into a minimum for child sex offences. The parliament that built the guidepost can rebuild it as a floor.
  • Victorian parliament can legislatively narrow the Verdins principles in serious child sex offences. Until it does, Verdins remains binding case law.
  • The Corrections Minister can amend the Commissioner's Requirements to bar male bodied offenders convicted of sexual offences against children from being placed in women's prisons. That's policy, not legislation. The minister can do it tomorrow.
  • The Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions can be required to refer any sentence below the standard sentence in serious child sex offences for Crown appeal review.
  • The Victorian government can publish, retrospectively, every settlement reached with a female inmate sexually assaulted by a male prisoner in a women's prison since the placement policy was introduced. Transparency on those settlements is overdue.

Maloney's non parole period expires in or around mid 2027. He could be back in the community before his daughter turns 10. The lawsuit, if it succeeds, would have the Victorian taxpayer paying him for it.

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