Comatose Aussie was revealed to be a convicted fugitive paedophile

A MAN known as Daniel Marcos Philips lay in a Brazilian hospital bed attached to tubes that were keeping him alive.

His prognosis was grim. Phillips’ brain was seriously injured, most likely dying, so there was little chance he would wake up and answer the growing list of questions investigators had for him.

For starters — who was he? Why was he in Brazil on a fake Australian passport? And what terrible secrets was he hiding?

FREAK ACCIDENT

It was a balmy evening in January when the make-believe world of Philips started to come crashing down. The 63-year-old was at Rio de Janeiro’s famous Copacabana Beach on January 18 when the driver of a black Hyundai i30 had a seizure and veered off the road and ploughed into a group of people.

Seventeen people were struck. An eight-month old girl was killed and four of the victims were seriously injured.

One of them was Phillips. He was taken to Miguel Couto Hospital where doctors managed to keep him alive, but tests later revealed a head injury so serious he was likely to die. The most optimistic scenario would see him spend the rest of his days in a vegetative state.

Police told local media he was a 68-year-old Australian — but to their shock no one by that name had ever entered or left Brazil. Yet, he had lived there for 20 years and worked as a teacher at an international school.

Interpol became involved and the Australian Federal Police ran checks on Philips. They discovered no passport had ever been issued to anyone by that name. Phillips was a fake identity, according to The Australian that first revealed his secret identity.

So who was this mystery man? Brazilian police reportedly began to fret about the impostor; their reasoning was sound — he must have done something terrible to have created a fake identity?

They were right.

CRACKING A 22-YEAR MYSTERY

Police finally took the only avenue left to them. A forensics officer dusted the fingerprints of the comatose Australian and send them to the AFP in a bid to find out who they were dealing with.

It was the fingerprint that finally ended the mystery. And its owner was not even aware it had been taken.

Back in Australia, federal police found the fingerprint was a match for a man called Christopher John Gott. Suddenly it was crystal clear why he went to such extraordinary lengths to keep his real identity hidden.

The Australian reports Gott was a schoolteacher from Darwin, who had worked in the Northern Territory capital in the early 1990s and in Melbourne in the 1980s.

In 1994, he was arrested on 17 separate child sex offences, including sex with a child under 14 and gross indecency and sexual abuse of a 16-year-old.

He was sentenced in Darwin to six years’ jail with a non-parole period of two years. After serving the minimum term he was released in April 1996 on parole.

He told the parole authority he was going to live with his parents, and set off in a bus to Melbourne. He never made it to Victoria though; when his bus reached Adelaide he got off and was never seen again.

That is until 22 years later in Miguel Couto Hospital.

Because he breached his parole conditions Gott was technically a wanted man in the NT. But with him being so gravely injured, the chances of him ever returning to this country are almost nil.

The main focus for the Brazilian authorities is trying to find out what Gott — under his assumed identity — was doing while he was in Brazil.

An investigation is underway but no evidence has been found of any wrongdoing. Yet.