Frankston Magistrates’ Court: Charles Yates and Max Restaurant in bullying, trouble
The head chef of an award-winning Mornington Peninsula restaurant called staff vile names such as “spazz” and ordered one to drink boiling oil.
South East
Don't miss out on the headlines from South East . Followed categories will be added to My News.
The head chef of a popular Peninsula restaurant has been roasted in court over workplace bullying after he forced one of his apprentices to wear a plastic bag on their head and told them to drink boiling oil.
Charles Yates and Ideal Catering Services appeared in the Frankston Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday where they both pleaded guilty to charges relating to workplace bullying.
Ideal Catering Services — trading as Max’s Restaurant in Red Hill — was also charged by WorkSafe with failing to provide a safe work environment after they were made aware of a bullying complaint.
The complaint related to Yates, who was the head chef at the time, who also faced a single charge of failing to ensure proper care of other employees.
The complaint detailed Yate’s treatment of two young apprentice chefs also working at the restaurant between October 2020 and June 2021, one of whom had a neurological developmental disability.
The court heard Yates forced one apprentice to wear a plastic bag on his head with eye holes cut out and persistently subjected them to offensive language and behaviour.
On another occasion Yates told an apprentice to drink boiling oil and told another to slit their wrists.
Yates also threw things at the apprentices, hit them over the head with cabbage leaves, and called them things like “spazz”, “c--face”, and “spunkbubble”.
The behaviour was so bad one apprentice resigned in May of 2021 and one apprentice took weeks of sick leave before also resigning.
The court heard Yates told investigators he had experienced similar treatment having worked in the hospitality sector since he was just 14 and hadn’t intended any harm in his actions.
Max’s Restaurant faced three charges relating to failing to provide a safe working environment and not providing appropriate training and supervision.
Industry figure Maxwell Paganoni is the director of the catering company and is also the owner of Max’s Restaurant.
The court heard the restaurant had been set up by Mr Paganoni in 1994 and was one of the areas first winery restaurants and for years had enjoyed fruitful success winning many awards.
However, since Covid it had been on financially shaky ground.
Mr Paganoni was also originally facing charges as well but these were withdrawn.
The court heard one of the victim’s mothers reported the conduct to Mr Paganoni, who was working in more of a managerial role as opposed to being in the kitchen but the situation wasn’t appropriately dealt with.
“I did everything in my power to rectify the situation,” Mr Paganoni told investigators in a statement, however, it was conceded by his defence that more could have been done.
The court heard since the investigation Mr Paganoni had worked on behalf of his company to upgrade policies and procedures to reduce the risk of this behaviour happening again.
WorkSafe said the conduct was “overt and obvious” and any punishment needed to have “some sting” to it to send a message to other workplaces.
Magistrate Christina Windisch said she needed time to consider all materials before sentencing Yates and Ideal Catering Services.
The matter was adjourned to next month.
