Victim’s bid to keep ‘monster’ paedophile, child killer behind bars

A child killer and serial paedophile could soon walk free from jail, but one of his victims is campaigning to keep him behind bars.

Michael Guider was jailed in 1996 on 66 paedophilia charges, followed by a 17-year sentence in 2002 for the manslaughter of nine-year-old girl Samantha Knight.

Samantha went missing in 1986, her disappearance remaining a mystery for years.

Eventually charged with her murder, Guider cut a deal to plead guilty to her manslaughter, claiming he accidentally overdosed the girl.

He never revealed precisely where he disposed of her body.

One victim of Guider's child abuse, Chantelle Hamilton, says he and other child killers who refuse to reveal where their victims' bodies are, should stay behind bars.

"Right up until maybe the last few years, I really just believed he'd be in jail forever, because I thought, how could he possibly not?" she told A Current Affair Crime Editor Simon Bouda.

"I hate that there is still a little part of me that is terrified of him. I hate it."

More than 100,000 supporters have joined her online "no body, no release" campaign.

Chantelle, now a mother of two, became one of Guider's victims aged just six.

Befriending single mothers, Guider would prey on their vulnerability, gaining their confidence and eventually their trust, so he could babysit their children.

Chantelle said at first she had wanted to accept Guider's invitation to go out with him for a day, saying he had seemd like "a really fun adult to play around with".

But when Guider was alone with the children, everything changed.

Lacing their soft drinks with a sedative, Guider took Chantelle and her friend to the beach and to the park.

"So he gave us a drug in a Coke bottle and took us to outings, forests, beaches and stuff, and got us to play games and take photos while playing these games," she said.

"One of the games was called 'statues'. So he'd get us to pose certain ways and touching each other, and him touching us and that sort of thing, and then take photos of that."

After his 1996 arrest on child abuse charges, Guider quickly became the prime suspect in Samantha Knight's disappearance 10 years before.

Strike Force detective investigating her disappearance learned that Samantha's mother Tess had also been tricked into a friendship by Guider.

Another of his former friends, Denise Hofman, offered to help the police.

"I don't believe Michael Guider should get out of jail," she told A Current Affair.

Ms Hofman committed to writing to Guider and visiting him in jail to see if she could convince him to admit what happened to Samantha.

Many of their conversations were recorded by investigators.

"He never admitted having any knowledge of Sam, or doing anything to her," she said.

"In the end, he started to threaten me, because I suppose he worked out what was happening and he didn't want it to happen that way."

She now believes a collection of Guider's scrapbooks and photos, discovered by police, may hold clues to the disappearance and suspected murders of other young children.

Among the macabre collection are photos of Samantha Knight, one showing her drugged and unconscious.

Forensic counsellor John Merrick, who provided counselling for Samantha's parents and Guider's other victims, told A Current Affair he was disappointed at the time that Guider had been allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter.

He believes Guider has not shown any remorse, and has manipulated the jail system.

By not applying for parole, once Guider is released after completing his full sentence, there would be no way of monitoring his actions.

"He wasn't opportunistic like a lot of child sexual assault offenders are," he said.

"He created opportunities, he created circumstances with false relationships with women who had young children."

On Friday, the New South Wales government is taking Guider's case to the Supreme Court in an effort to either keep him locked up, or at the very least have him extensively monitored once he is released into the community.

"It won't be a question of if he re-offends again," Mr Merrick said.

"It's a question of when he will re-offend again."

And Mr Merrick, Ms Hamilton and Ms Hofman were all united in their opinion that Guider was a "monster".

"He is the scary person in your dreams," Ms Hamilton said.

"The bogey man - that's Guider."