Victoria’s worst offenders face new bans on working with children
After dozens of Victorian criminals won legal appeals to apply for permits to work as sports coaches and carers, new legislation is set to be introduced to ban our worst offenders from working with children.
Law & Order
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Murderers, sex fiends and other dangerous criminals will be barred from working with children under a tightening of state laws.
The new legislation will be introduced to parliament on Wednesday.
The move comes after dozens of offenders, including child molesters, won legal appeals to allow them to obtain permits to work as junior sports umpires, nurses and carers.
Since 2014, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has approved 39 per cent of all appeals from people initially banned from working with children due to their criminal pasts.
Data provided to the Herald Sun showed 74 of 189 people who applied to VCAT had their bans overturned, clearing them to work with children.
Among that list were:
A paedophile who met his 13-year-old victim while working as a clown at a childcare centre. He was granted a permit to allow him to work in patient transport;
A mantraining in the disability care sector who molested a 14-year-old boy in a toilet;
A footy umpire with a history of sex offending and masturbating in public, whose appeal was supported with a glowing reference from “a very senior person in the AFL”;
A junior basketball coach who raped a woman outside a nightclub in a random attack;
A school umpire who chased and killed his ex-girlfriend and shot her lover.
Under existing laws, all offenders, except those subject to certain orders or obligations under sex offender legislation, are able to appeal to VCAT to try and gain a working with children permit.
But according to the Bill being introduced on Wednesday, that right of appeal would be withdrawn for anyone charged with or found guilty of a category A offence — which includes murder, attempted murder, rape, attempted rape, sexual offences against a child and child-porn offences.
Attorney-General Jill Hennessy said: “We are doing everything we can to keep children safe, which is why we’re strengthening protections under the Working with Children Act 2005 by limiting the appeal rights of adults with category A offences.”
Ms Hennessy said she was working with federal and state counterparts to push for national standards in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The department’s figures show they rejected 2932 applications for a working with children check in the past five years and 230 were appealed to VCAT.
Of those, 189 have had an outcome so far — 41 appeals are still in progress.
Eleven cases that were overturned at VCAT were then appealed to the Supreme Court by the department however the appeals were unsuccessful.
Opposition legal affairs spokesman Ed O’Donohue said of the bill: “The safety of children and protecting the community will always be our priority”.