Royal Commission hears senior Families SA recruiter was “pressured” to change screening results to meet recruitment targets

A SENIOR Families SA youth worker was “pressured” to change screening results for job applicants to meet recruitment targets, a Royal Commission has heard.

• Inquiry: Shannon McCoole worked shift while he was suspended

A SENIOR Families SA youth worker was “pressured” to change screening results for job applicants to meet recruitment targets, a Royal Commission has heard.

The worker, who was chairman of the panel which hired Shannon McCoole, made the allegations as a friend of the sex predator admitted that recruitment policy was not strictly followed when she used her position as an OSHC director to hire him.

The chairman, who cannot be named, told the commission on Thursday he was pressured to change potential employees’ status from “not recommended” to “recommended” following intensive testing of several job applicants.

He said he was told to aid the employment of applicants as casual employees and “just get rid of them when we had enough people”.

The evidence emerged during a hearing of the Royal Commission into the state’s child protection system.

The worker said, in hindsight, it would have been “quite helpful” for the panel to pass on results of applicants who had scored poorly in Australian Institute of Forensic Psychology testing, but still had been recommended for employment, to his superiors.

He gave details of several candidates whose status had been changed from “not recommended” to “recommended” following their recruitment process. McCoole, 33, was not one of them.

The Australian Institute of Forensic Psychology report labelled McCoole “high risk” and recommended “extreme caution” in considering him.

The test results prompted two people on a Families SA recruitment panel to recommend McCoole be rejected but they were overruled by the chairman.

The youth worker’s testimony came before a friend of McCoole, who was an Out of School Hours Care director, admitted to the commission that recruitment policy was not strictly followed when she hired him as a casual worker.

During her examination, the commission heard McCoole was wearing shorts while a girl, aged between six and eight, rubbed his bare legs as she sat between them during his tenure at the centre.

The director, who was used by McCoole as a referee during subsequent job applications, said she could not recall intervening when notified of the incident by one of McCoole’s colleagues.

“He was a good worker, he fulfilled all the tasks required of him, not only supervising the child but greeting the families on arrival and departure,” she said.

She said she had known McCoole socially for about two to three years before employing him on merit — and not because of their friendship.

She said she did not strictly follow the recruitment process when employing casual staff and McCoole was no exception.

McCoole was able to use his work experience with the OSHC centre to gain a job at NannySA and then later Families SA where he would abuse vulnerable children in his care while running an international child pornography website.

He was last year jailed for a record 35 years for sexually abusing children in his care between 2011 and 2014.