POLICE have confirmed that registered sex offender Warren ‘Wazza’ Wright, 49, was arrested on Monday near Hawkesdale and spent the night locked up before he was due to appear at the Portland Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday for a bail/remand hearing.
He was charged with four counts of failing to report contacts.
Wright had been walking across south-west Victoria claiming to be raising money for mental health organisations, Beyond Blue and R U OK? before he was exposed as fraudulently representing them and asking for donations and accommodation from unsuspecting victims.
On Friday, R U OK? confirmed they were not affiliated despite Wright regularly posting updates about his walk on his social media page and wearing the suicide prevention organisation’s clothing.
Wright has since taken his Facebook page down but his Instagram page remains up – it was claimed he had previously changed his Beyond Blue walk for mental health page name five times in a six-month period between November 2018 and May 2019.
He was convicted of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in a caravan park in Mildura in 2021. He had allegedly bought the teen alcohol before walking in on her while she was showering and touching her.
Wright was subsequently placed on the sex offender registry for eight years as well as being handed an 18-month community corrections order.
Beyond Blue said they cut ties with Wright in 2021 after this incident and are doing everything they can to stop him from telling people he represents them.
The Hamilton community raised the alarm last week after a local couple claimed on Facebook that they had offered Wright their family’s shed for one night out of good faith, before he convinced them to stay in their loungeroom due to the cold weather – it was here where he attempted to make himself at home and got “blind rotten drunk” and refused to leave their property.
It allegedly took four policemen and an ambulance to remove him from their property but after leaving, he was found camping only 50 metres away.
On Thursday last week, community members began recording his movements online and alerting others, with alleged sightings of him out the front of Monivae College on Thursday, and then at the Hamilton Skatepark early on Friday.
He is believed to have left town on Saturday afternoon before heading towards Hawkesdale, before eventually being arrested on Monday.
On June 5 this year, a Willaura woman also offered her couch for Wright to stay on for two nights after her bookshop was apparently too cold, not knowing his criminal past – her unsuspecting six-year-old granddaughter and two daughters, aged 19 and 20, were apparently living at the home while Mr Wright crashed on the couch.
