Baptist Care SA worker fired for saying ‘I love you’ to a troubled boy loses unfair dismissal case

A Baptist Care support worker who told a troubled boy “I love you”, tried to foster him and subsequently lost his job has lost an unfair dismissal case.

A Baptist Care support worker who lost his job for telling a child “I love you”, has failed in a compensation bid for unfair dismissal.

The worker was fired six months after the declaration, when a boy in his care assaulted another boy while they were left unattended in a car.

It happened when the worker ran inside the Baptist Care home to collect medication.

But the Fair Work Commission heard the trust and confidence of senior Baptist Care staff in the worker had been eroded after it emerged he told the troubled boy “I love you”.

The worker also said he was going to fix up his house so the boy could sleep over and that he was trying to foster the child.

The middle-aged male worker was caring for the boy at a facility in regional South Australia when he was dismissed on November 23, 2018, after a series of incidents.

The Fair Work Commission heard the worker had developed a “significant emotional attachment” to the child and continued to show a desire to adopt the boy.

Commission deputy president Peter Anderson said the dismissal had devastated the worker who was distressed at the inference he had been grooming the child.

“The impacts on the worker are very real,” he said in a published judgment.

“Short of actually being accused of grooming and paedophilia, the inference from the allegations that he was putting a child at such risk is as brutal a burden as a dismissed employee can carry.

“I have found evidence of a misguided depth of care and affection towards a child, but no evidence of grooming.”

Mr Anderson found that a series of other incidents, including buying the boy fast-food, rewarding him with Twisties for eating breakfast and accidentally allowing him to rent an MA15+ rated DVD before taking it back from him, were mild or moderate breaches of duty.

But he found that leaving the two boys alone in a car was a serious breach.

The victim of the assault required treatment outside the car but was not seriously injured in the incident.

Mr Anderson said the most serious breach was the development of an emotional attachment between the worker and the child, which was more similar to a parent and a child, rather than a child in care.

The worker said during the hearing that he would continue to try to foster the child, telling the tribunal: “I’m not going to give up, that’s why I’m here”.