The mother of nine-year-old schoolgirl Samantha Knight has welled up with tears acknowledging her daughter can't be saved, but wants others protected from her killer - convicted pedophile Michael Anthony Guider.
"This is about the ongoing safety of the community," Tess Knight told reporters outside the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday.
"We can't save Samantha. She's gone."
Her daughter was last seen speaking to a male in Bondi in August 1986 and died while dosed with a sedative.
Guider, 68, pleaded guilty to Samantha's manslaughter in 2002 and has almost served his 17-year maximum term, due to expire on Thursday.
Victim's mother Tess Knight speaks to the media on Tuesday. Source: AAP
But Justice Richard Button on Tuesday ordered Guider - a man with "grossly distorted sexuality" - be examined separately by a psychiatrist and a psychologist who will report back to court "by a date to be fixed".
In the meantime, Guider will be subject to a 28-day renewable interim detention order from Thursday.
The judge said community safety was the paramount consideration at the preliminary stage of considering Guider's release.
The court last week heard Guider now denies killing Samantha and claims his confession was made under pressure from police and others.
A file photo of Samantha Knight. Source: AAP
When he was sentenced over her death, the gardener and part-time babysitter was already serving time for numerous sex offences against more than a dozen other children between 1980 and 1996.
Guider had a well-established method of drugging children with sleeping medication to enable his sex abuse.
Ms Knight said Guider had never been forthcoming in any way, shape or form about his prior offending.
"He has admitted very, very little," she said on Tuesday.
A community rally against the release of convicted paedophile and child murderer, Michael Guider, in Bondi. Source: AAP
"He has only made admissions when the evidence has forced him to make admissions. He has never given us details of what happened to Samantha, he has never given us admissions of what he did to her body."
Ms Knight isn't satisfied Guider's "not a risk" and says that needs to be proven.
Justice Button said Guider's refusal to accept any responsibility for Samantha's death was "concerning indeed".
"It intensifies the concerns - expressed 17 years ago by the chief judge - about his refusal to reveal the disposition of the body of the deceased," the judge said.
"It must be interpreted as a significant backward step.
"In my opinion, it raises a question not only about his acceptance of responsibility for what he has done, but also ... his mental state more generally."
NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman is seeking a one-year detention order and a subsequent five-year extended supervision order when he is released.
The matter will be determined at a final hearing in the coming months.
"It is true to say that the position of the plaintiff (State of NSW) itself envisages the release of the defendant (Guider) in the reasonably near future," Justice Button said.
The judge said he was by no means sure Guider's "chronic, intense, longstanding sexual attraction to children ... has dissipated entirely".
Samantha's body has never been found.
