Damien Paul Kennedy was arrested in North Wollongong – more than 1000 kilometres from where he was last seen – on Wednesday afternoon.

A highway patrol officer pulled over a Hyundai Sonata on University Avenue, near the M1 Princes Motorway, just before 2pm. 

Checks revealed Kennedy was the passenger and he was taken into custody.

The 28-year-old was wanted by Queensland Police.

Kennedy will appear in Wollongong Local Court on Thursday, where detectives from the Queensland Police Service’s Corrective Service Investigation Unit will seek his extradition to Queensland. 

Kennedy’s last known location was in the southern Brisbane suburb of Salisbury at 4.13pm on Monday, after he removed his electronic monitoring device while on supervised release.

On Tuesday, he taunted police with a Facebook post in which he claimed he was in Rockhampton.

“Come get me morther (sic) f---ers.”he wrote.

In 2008, Kennedy pleaded guilty to the rape of a 49-year-old sex worker.

Court documents revealed he was 18 years old when he entered the woman’s townhouse and repeatedly punched her before he threatened her with scissors.

After the attack, Kennedy apologised for hitting the woman. The court heard Kennedy was raised in an “extremely toxic family environment” and first went to jail at the age of 17.

He was eligible for parole in 2010 and since then has been in and out of custody after repeatedly returning positive drug tests, with methamphetamine and cannabis the common factors.

In December last year, a judge considered him a “serious danger to the community”. However, he was released from custody on a supervision order.

 – with Amy Mitchell-Whittington and Toby Crockford