AAP
Pedophile Dennis Ferguson inspired a level of hatred, revulsion and fear rarely seen in Australia.
The child rapist's lonely death at his Sydney flat on Sunday is being mourned by very few and marked with palpable relief by many.
The crime that put him at the heart of a vigilante-style movement that spanned two states was heinous indeed.
In 1987, Ferguson and his male lover Alexandria George Brooks abducted three children - aged six, seven, and eight - from NSW and took them to a motel in suburban Brisbane.
There the children were repeatedly raped and subjected to vile and indecent acts, sentencing them all to a life of torment.
But in committing those heinous acts, Ferguson guaranteed himself the same fate.
After his 2003 release from a Queensland jail, having serving 15 years and nine months for raping the children, he was hounded from place to place by fearful mothers, fathers and grandparents.
As Ferguson moved from town to town in Queensland, and from place to place in Sydney, the chaos and protests followed him.
Effigies of the sexual predator were burned in the street.
A replica coffin was left outside his door, along with a molotov cocktail.
As Ferguson was subjected to death threats, leaders including then prime minister Kevin Rudd publicly warned Australians not to take the law into their own hands.
It was an extraordinary outpouring of fear and anger for a man whose pinched face and odd mannerisms came to symbolise the scourge of pedophilia, child protection advocate Hetty Johnston says.
"He was easy to dislike and he acted as a lightning rod for community fears and hatred for pedophiles," Ms Johnston told AAP on Monday.
The Bravehearts founder believes Ferguson's legacy, if it can be called that, is a renewed community focus on keeping children safe and a fresh debate about the way serious child sex offenders are dealt with in the courts.
She says the Queensland government deserves high praise for recently introducing a two-strikes law, meaning serious repeat child sex offenders will now be jailed for life.
"That's how it should be. We should not be releasing dangerous offenders back into the community and expecting the community and our children to have to deal with that."
Ferguson's former neighbour Sean Killgallon is celebrating the pedophile's death.
Mr Killgallon left the replica coffin outside Ferguson's Ryde home after he moved to the Sydney suburb in 2009.
"We're glad that the world is rid of an evil man who will hurt no more innocent children," he told AAP.
"I don't think anyone who is a loving parent or human being could justify losing a tear over him passing away."
Ferguson's former counsellor Dr Wendell Rosevear said his client had worked to address his behaviour.
"He was honest about the dimensions of his own life, both victimisation and perpetration. That honesty is the biggest predictor of someone's resolution," Dr Rosevear told the ABC.
That may come as cold comfort to Ferguson's victims.
Back in 2003, after he was released, one of his victims spoke of her enduring anguish about what Ferguson and his co-conspirator did to her, her brother and another boy in that Brisbane motel.
"He made me have sex with him and his friends. They used me as a sex toy," she told the Nine Network.
"He got 15 years and I've got a life sentence for it."
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