Fraud claims, kids removed from care home after girl’s murder charge
A state care provider who looked after a 12-year-old girl accused of murder has had all children removed from its care amid allegations of fraud and neglect.
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Authorities have removed all children from the state care provider responsible for looking after a 12-year-old girl alleged to have murdered a woman amid a federal probe focusing on fraud and neglect.
The provider the girl was living with at the time of the horror killing is alleged to have falsified documents, giving staff fake training certificates.
The organisation – which the Herald Sun is not naming for legal reasons – also faces multiple claims of a lack of supervision, failing to provide adequate food and allowing youths to engage in inappropriate relationships with each other.
A court heard in January that the substance-affected girl stabbed a 37-year-old woman several times in a Footscray flat on November 16. Two witnesses had found her in a hallway with blood on her bare feet and ankles, wearing a dress that was inside out and back to front.
The child reportedly had run away from her carers about 275 times in three years and is believed to have been repeatedly sexually exploited.
Following the alleged murder, the Victorian Department of Families Fairness and Housing urgently pulled seven other children out of the provider’s properties and rehoused them.
Former workers told the Herald Sun they underwent no extra training before the provider began housing up to 12 wards of the state across its facilities spanning Victoria in August 2022.
The training company listed on workers’ certificates – which were riddled with spelling and grammatical errors – does not exist, according to the federal education regulator.
Under state government guidelines, care workers must complete mandatory training on top of any diplomas or degrees they already hold if providing residential care was not part of their original study.
An Australian Skills Quality Authority spokesman said there were no records of a training organisation under the name detailed by the care provider, and no other organisations had used it.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme and Victoria Police are assisting in the investigation into “serious criminal allegations” against the care provider. The “phantom” training organisation was registered as a business in name only just six months before the 12-year-old living in one of the provider’s facilities allegedly fatally stabbed the woman.
Children live in out-of-home residential care when they have been removed from their homes because they have experienced severe trauma and have no legal guardian or foster parents.
Documents obtained by the Herald Sun show the provider, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the National Disability Insurance Scheme to care for wards of the state, also came under fire in a string of submissions to the regulator at least two months before the alleged murder.
One worker, who asked not to be named, said they believed the provider had “swindled” the NDIS out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide substandard residential care to children, labelling their practices “frightful and shocking”.
“Something had to be done. It was snowballing and people were starting to ask questions,” they said.
“I told them someone was going to die if nothing was done. I didn’t want to be right.”
A state government spokeswoman said the Human Services Regulator was probing the provider, which would no longer care for wards of the state.
“This matter involves serious criminal allegations about a service provider, and we call on anyone with information to provide it to Victoria Police,” she said.
It comes after NDIS Minister Bill Shorten announced a crackdown on dodgy and unregistered care providers.
An NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission spokeswoman said the NDIS was unaware of allegedly fabricated staff qualifications when the body renewed the provider’s registration in June 2021.
“The NDIS Commission has received multiple complaints in relation to (name removed), and is actively investigating this provider,” she said.
Victoria’s Commissioner for Children and Young People has launched an inquiry into the 12-year-old murder accused’s circumstances.
The provider did not respond to requests for comment from the Herald Sun.
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