A serial paedophile who used his position in the Boy Scouts to target his victims, and who remains "strongly" attracted to children, was due to walk free from jail in six weeks.
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But the state of NSW has successfully fought for an interim detention order keeping Jeffrey Wayne Davie behind bars to be psychiatrically assessed.
Davie, who on May 26 will have served his maximum 10-year sentence for luring a nine-year-old boy into a toilet and sexually assaulting him, will remain in jail for an extra 28 days under the order, before a final hearing about his release.
The attack on the boy, at a function for the State Emergency Services in 2005, came two years after he was released from jail for a string of sexual assaults against 10 boys in the Newcastle area.
He gained the trust of those boys and their families through his position as a babysitter or with the Boy Scouts to commit the crimes between the mid-1980s and 1992, his sentencing judge said.
Davie pleaded guilty to those offences after a film developer alerted police to photographs of his crimes, and he was sentenced to 12 years' jail.
NSW courts have heard that Davie was sexually assaulted as a child and shows a "chronic proclivity to sexually assault young boys".
A charge of indecent assault - relating to a six-year-old boy who he handcuffed to a fence - was dismissed in the Children's Court when Davie was 16, with a magistrate asking that he continue to seek treatment from a doctor.
But, according to the NSW Supreme Court judgment handed down on Tuesday, Davie did not seek treatment, and has not shown any interest in treatment programs in jail.
Justice Richard Button granted the state's request for an interim detention order, under the High Risk Offenders Act, noting that some evidence before the court suggested Davie remains "strongly sexually attracted to children".
Justice Button said Davie had shown himself to be "adept" at finding ways to have contact with children.
"In short, since November 1984, over 30 years ago, the defendant has committed very serious sexual offences against children. Those offences have been both premeditated and opportunistic," the judge said.
"He has been undeterred by stern sentences so far. He has not been successfully treated; to the contrary, there is a real question whether he even accepts the immense wrongfulness of what he has done. In the unusual circumstances of this case, I consider that nothing less than an [interim detention order] is appropriate."
The matter returns to court later this month.
