Cleo Smith search: GPS devices on almost 20 dangerous offenders failed for seven hours across WA this year

The GPS tracking devices on almost 20 dangerous, including those charged with sex crimes, failed for seven hours in areas including the Mid West earlier this year. Department of Justice on Thursday revealed 18 devices were affected by the fault, which occurred when the electronic monitoring service provider experienced a temporary technical failure. The announcement comes as the desperate search for missing Carnarvon girl Cleo Smith enters its third week. According to a Department of Justice spokesperson, the outage lasted between 4.06pm and 11.12pm on May 29, with the affected devices belonging to offenders located in the Mid West, South West, Great Southern and Perth metro area. They said “alternative monitoring methods” were used to track offenders during the outage and the problem has since been rectified “to prevent a similar occurrence”. “During this temporary technical failure, the GPS devices still collected data of the offenders’ movements which was able to be retrieved,” the spokesperson said. The State Government’s missing sex offender register on Friday listed 14 people whose whereabouts was unknown to police as they had either failed to comply with their reporting obligations or have provided false or misleading information. Among the unaccounted offenders, one man had been listed as “missing” one week before Cleo’s disappearance and another three days before. All were men aged between 25 and 72 and most were last seen in the Perth metropolitan area, with three of the offenders last known addresses located in the Goldfields. Among the convicted criminals was a man who raped a teenage girl in a ditch at knifepoint after he had asked if she could give him a ride on her bicycle. Another was jailed for numerous rapes of children over a six-year period, including the rape of a three-year-old girl in New Zealand. It comes as police revealed there were up to 20 registered sex offenders living in the Carnarvon area, where little Cleo disappeared. Deputy Police Commissioner Darryl Gaunt last month said there were up to 20 registered sex offenders living in the Carnarvon area at the time Cleo disappeared from the Blowholes Campground on October 16.