VCAT backs former drugs offender to work with children

A MAN who racked up 25 drug offences across four states in 17 years has won an appeal at VCAT to work with children.

VCAT

A MAN who racked up 25 drug offences across four states in 17 years has won an appeal to work with children.

The decision was made after Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal deputy president Heather Lambrick said she believed the man's "prolonged history of offending is now behind him".

The appeal was heard on December 18, two weeks before Victoria's new working-with-children check laws, which changed legal tests for applicants with serious criminal convictions, applied.

It heard the man, referred to as JFC and who now wants to coach cricket and study welfare, was released from jail in 2010.

He had been sentenced to a minimum of 6 1/2 years in jail after being found to be a "major co-ordinator" in a drug ring that distributed at least 900kg of cannabis worth more than $5 million.

Ms Lambrick said JFC had also been charged with four weapons-related offences between 1985 and 2004, and been a drug addict.

She said there was no evidence JFC had sold drugs directly to children but "there is every probability that at least some of the cannabis he distributed made its way into the hands of vulnerable children".

Despite this, she said the man appeared to be reformed and had not used drugs for a decade.

The Secretary to the Department of Justice, who refused the man's application for a working-with-children check, had pointed to internal correction documents "which implicated JFC in drug use and drug dealing whilst in prison".

The man had also spent time in "separated management" after cannabis seeds were found in his unit.

But Ms Lambrick said JFC had denied he dealt or used drugs in jail and had not been charged there.

"The time has come to enable him to re-engage fully with the community and that extends to his being able to work with children," she ruled. "It can never be said that a person poses no risk to children. However I consider any risk posed by JFC to be extremely low."

A spokesman for Attorney-General Robert Clark, James Copsey, said he was not able to comment on JFC's case.

But he said the Coalition had bolstered laws applying to applicants "with previous serious convictions".