Paedophile Shannon McCoole faces Child Protection Systems Royal Commission

SHANNON McCoole is today being grilled in the dock over the vile atrocities he has committed. How was this paedophile able to infiltrate a system intended to detect fiends such as him?

• SHOCKING: McCoole discussed vile plan to buy baby for sex toy
• JAIL: McCoole sentenced to 35 years in jail for horrific abuse of children in state care
• CLEARED: Predator caught ‘raping’ girl, then cleared and promoted

IN the weeks after police stormed through the door of Shannon McCoole’s Oaklands Park home and found vile evidence of his unspeakable atrocities, the public was told there were no previous warnings of his crimes.

But following The Advertiser’s revelation he was suspended, investigated and then cleared just a year earlier, the full story of his deceit and our state child protection system’s inability to detect the monster in front of its nose has emerged.

It has taken McCoole’s prosecution, the trials of his fellow child exploitation website deviants overseas, and testimony from more than 80 witnesses to a royal commission to untangle his web.

McCoole, 33, has appeared in person in front of the commission today. He is being grilled in the dock in an effort to gain insight into how he was able to infiltrate and then manipulate the very departments designed to detect monsters such as him.

Numerous warnings by co-workers and children went unheeded as he committed his atrocities against children in his care for 3½ years while working for Families SA between 2011 and 2014.

But the state’s child protection failures run deeper than pointing the finger just at the beleaguered Families SA — which is still recovering from the Coroner’s scathing investigation into the death of young Chloe Valentine.

As revealed by the commission into the state’s child protection systems, Nanny SA, Families SA, the Child Protection Services and, to a lesser extent, the Education Department all failed in their primary duty — to protect children.

The response, or lack of it, to a credible report by a colleague that she interrupted McCoole sexually assaulting a young girl in state care, a year before he was finally ­arrested, is staggering.

Paedophile Shannon McCoole.

The commission has heard the colleague was “intimidated, disbelieved, belittled” by her superiors for daring to report what she had seen. She was scorned as “manipulative” and her report was labelled as “minor” and possibly the result of a personality clash, despite them having worked only a handful of shifts together.

Witnesses have testified that following a discussion with CPS, Families SA supervisors agreed to allow a youth worker with no experience in investigating child sexual abuse to talk to the girl, but not before being told the report was baseless. Supervisors cleared McCoole and promoted him.

As a final insult, the supervisor allegedly told a potential new employer of the woman who filed the report against McCoole that she was manipulative and not to hire her.

The commission has heard the colleague, who had held firm despite insinuations she had embellished the abuse, was not vindicated but subjected to threats after McCoole’s arrest. The supervisor is yet to give evidence. The report, made a year before McCoole was arrested in June 2014, was made amid a background of warnings and complaints of McCoole’s “inappropriate” behaviour around children, including:

Paedophile Shannon McCoole.

A SUPERVISOR “brushed off” a child’s continual reference to “Shannon” during night tremors and sexualised behaviour when having her nappy changed.

McCOOLE barged in on girl, 13, while semi-naked in a bathroom. A co-worker gave him the benefit of the doubt, believing his claims he feared she was self-harming.

A YOUNG girl called McCoole “Mr Paedophile”, but her comments were not investigated or “escalated”.

FORENSIC psychology testing labelled McCoole “high risk” and recommended “extreme caution” in considering him, but he was progressed regardless.

McCOOLE was caught bringing an R-rated movie about young people having sex into a care house.

A WORKER watched as McCoole allowed a young boy to place his hand on his crotch. They did not report or record the incident.

Despite the concerns, when McCoole was investigated after his co-worker reported the alleged sexual abuse of the girl, his superiors told the CPS he had no history of inappropriate behaviour.