Shannon McCoole promoted after bringing R-rated movie about young people having sex into care house: Royal Commission

FAMILIES SA promoted sex predator Shannon McCoole shortly after he brought an R-rated movie about young people having sex into a care house of vulnerable children, a royal commission has heard.

FAMILIES SA promoted sex predator Shannon McCoole shortly after he brought an R-rated movie about young people having sex into a care house of vulnerable children, a royal commission has heard.

The evidence comes amid the testimony of several former colleagues of McCoole who told the commission into the state’s child protection system that making complaints against inappropriate behaviour by co-workers was “futile”.

One youth worker on Monday told the commission McCoole had brought a hard drive with several movies into the house, one of which was called Young People F---ing.

The court heard the movie was about the relationships of four or five young couples.

The youth worker said a directive that staff not bring movies into the house was issued after her complaint but she was shocked when McCoole was not disciplined and promoted not long after.

“I heard through rumours (it was deemed that) there was nothing wrong, that the movie had been viewed and it was deemed no more explicit than American Pie (a raunchy MA-rated teenage comedy from 1999),” she said.

The worker said she sent an email complaining about McCoole’s movie choices, which also included other “inappropriate” movies, to her superiors but it appeared no action was taken against him.

She said McCoole had also sent “ridiculous” directives such as the removal of toys and that the girls in the house no longer have baths because he had conducted internet research which showed it gives them urinal tract infections.

The worker said she was shocked when their superior agreed with McCoole about baths for the girls and rather than punish him for the movies, he was soon promoted.

“It was natural to think this guy (McCoole) was bulletproof. I had a real sense of futility (about reporting him.)

Her evidence about the alleged futility of making reports against colleagues was echoed by another colleague.

The senior youth worker, who was also employed with McCoole, told the commission complaints she made about colleagues, such as co-worker allegedly taking children to her house during a shift, fell on deaf ears.

“We were constantly reporting all of them (inappropriate behaviours), some minor, some more major issues, and nothing ever happened — it went nowhere,” she said.

“It seemed futile to report anything because nothing ever happened,” she said.

The worker, whose name is suppressed, said she had reported a co-worker after being told she had taken the children to her house and had also allegedly supplied another teenager, who was suffering from withdrawals from marijuana, with prescription drug Phenergan to help her sleep.

She said the co-worker had almost “bragged” about the lack of consequences to her alleged behaviour.

The worker said she had taken McCoole for an observation session when he first began at Families SA and found him to be “excessively confident”.

She said other workers had given McCoole the nickname “calves” because “he use to tell everyone that his calves were so big he could not fit his jeans over them.”

“I couldn’t stand to be around the guy. He was really quite aggressive and rude.”

Two of the three panellists who advanced McCoole’s job application following his initial interview told the commission they had not received any training on recruitment before meeting him.

The commission has previously heard the duo had not recommended McCoole for an interview after an Australian Institute of Forensic Psychology report recommended “extreme caution” in considering him.

Documents tendered to the Commission show the duo, however, signed off on McCoole’s job application progression following the interview which went ahead anyway.

Both the panellists said they had little memory of McCoole but due to their inexperience were confident in following the advice of the third panellist, who was the chairman of the recruitment process, and allow the application to progress.

When one of the panellists, who had not been a panellist before McCoole’s induction — or since — was asked whether she believed she was equipped to recognise who would be a danger to children she replied:

“I’m not a psychologist, I can’t guess who they are as a person except with what I’m presented with at the time.”

The chairman of the panel told the Commission last week he felt “pressured” to change the status of some applicants to recommended to meet recruitment quotas.

McCoole, who used his position at Families SA to abuse vulnerable children in his care between 2011 and 2014 while running an international child pornography website, was last year jailed for a record 35 years.

The commission continues on Wednesday.