Queensland Consolidated Acts

CRIMINAL CODE 1899 - SECT 363

363 Child-stealing

(1) Any person who, with intent to deprive any parent, guardian, or other person who has the lawful care or charge, of a child under the age of 16 years, of the possession of such child, or with intent to steal any article upon or about the person of any such child—

(a) forcibly or fraudulently takes or entices away, or detains, the child; or

(b) receives or harbours the child, knowing it to have been so taken or enticed away or detained;

is guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for 7 years.

(2) It is a defence to a charge of any of the offences defined in this section to prove that the accused person claimed in good faith a right to the possession of the child, or, in the case of a child whose parents were not married to each other at the time of its conception and have not since married each other, not being a child who has been adopted as aforesaid, is its mother or claimed in good faith to be its father.

(3) In this section—

"corresponding parentage order" means an order under a law of another State that provides for a parentage order similar to a parentage order under the Surrogacy Act 2010 .

"parent" includes—

(a) for a child who has been legally adopted in Queensland or in another State—a person who has adopted the child; or

(b) for a child whose parentage has been transferred by a parentage order under the Surrogacy Act 2010 or a corresponding parentage order—a person who is a parent of the child under the order; or

(c) for a child whose parentage has been transferred under a cultural recognition order made under the Meriba Omasker Kaziw Kazipa (Torres Strait Islander Traditional Child Rearing Practice) Act 2020 —a person who is a parent of the child under the order;

but does not include a natural parent of the child.