Nadia Khalil: ‘Sick predator’ youth worker revealed to have sexually assaulted boys in juvenile jail
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NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA: Two men who were sexually assaulted at age 15 by a female youth worker inside a juvenile prison have recounted how she would lure them with food and cigarettes. 49-year-old Nadia Khalil is serving a 12-year sentence for child sex offenses that took place while she was working as a youth justice officer at Reiby Juvenile Justice center in the 1990s.
The youth worker, from Sydney, became a mainstay at Reiby in Airds between 1994 and 2009. She was reportedly "flirty" with underage boys and quickly turned into a "predator." Khalil is now said to be appealing the offenses, which occurred between 1997 and 2005, saying her alleged victims were financially motivated.
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'She's a predator'
Dion Welsh recalled the first time he encountered Khalil in September 1996, speaking to ABC News show 7.30. He said the youth worker — then in her 20s — was "very flirty and very outgoing," and would often fetch snacks from a storeroom to entice him into performing sex acts. "It went from talking, touching, flirting…to…hands down pants and whatnot," he said. Welsh was legally unable to give consent at age 15, but remembered being "over the moon." However, he has since realized he was abused. The former inmate said the ordeal made him lose trust in authority figures, affected his relationships with women, and contributed to long periods in jail. The Biripi man who hails from the north of Newcastle currently lives with his partner and her young son. "To prey on young boys that way she did...yeah, she's a predator," Welsh insisted.
'I felt sick afterward'
Gary Glover, another of Khalil's victims, told 7.30 how he felt "ashamed and dirty" after being sexually abused by her and said it impacted on his re-offending and majorly affected his relationships with women. In 1997, the then-16-year-old was allegedly watching television in Reiby's recreational room when Khalil entered and accused him of not making his bed. She took him back to his cell, where she apparently "lit up a cigarette and she told me to go into the bathroom to smoke it … while she stood at the door," Gary said. "When I finished the cigarette and walked out of the bathroom she was sitting on my bed and she was making a gesture for me to sit down next to her, and I was sort of nervous and shy," he recalled. "She said to me not to be scared, that no one knows. It got worse and worse. I ended up having sex with her then."
Over the following weeks, Gary and Khalil would have sex multiple times in his cell. "She kept on like, just grabbing me and making me perform sexual acts on her when I didn't want to. That happened several times," he continued. "I knew it was abuse because I felt sick afterward; I felt like I didn't want to do that and she made me do it. I was sort of confused because I was still only young [and] … I'd come from hanging around some bad boys on the streets." In August 1997, Khalil allegedly gave Gary her contact details and let him escape out of the bathroom window of his cell with another boy. She allegedly picked him up the next day and the pair "went back to her place." Gary claims he spent six months on the run before being caught by police in February 1998. Gary was recorded in clinical notes from a September 2020 therapy session saying Khalil "ruined all adult [relationships with] women" and that "she was dirty and sick."
Paul Creed, a lawyer representing both Glover and Welsh, is helping them in their civil legal claims against New South Wales, accusing the state of failing to protect them from sexual abuse carried out by Khalil. According to Creed, there are dozens of claims from men who were held at Reiby as boys alleging they were abused by Khalil or others. As mentioned, she is appealing the offenses claiming the men who testified against her were financially motivated. Her case is listed in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal this month, according to Daily Mail Australia.