Accused child rapist teacher’s aide returned to school on orders of Education Department

A school principal has told members of a Queensland Indigenous community he was ordered by his department to let a teacher’s aide return to work despite child-sex allegations against him.

Teacher’s aide Kenneth Day with pupils who are unconnected to his charges. Picture: Dan Elliott / South Burnett Times

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A school principal has told members of a Queensland Indigenous community he was ordered by his own department to allow a teacher’s aide to return to work despite serious child-sex alle­gations being made against him.

After being cleared to go back to the school, Kenneth Day then allegedly went on to repeatedly rape another young girl.

Mr Day, 67, was arrested this month and charged with sexually abusing three girls, sending shockwaves through the small town of Cherbourg where he was recently appointed to the local council’s elders advisory group.

Kenneth Day has been charged with 12 counts of sexual offending against three children. Picture: Aiden Burgess / South Burnett Times

He was still working as a teacher’s aide at the time of his arrest, despite a girl going to police and his school in 2022 to report him for allegedly grooming and sexually abusing her for years, The Australian revealed this week.

Cherbourg resident and traditional owner Cynthia Button on Tuesday said she confronted the school’s principal about Mr Day’s employment in a meeting at the school after his arrest.

“He said ‘in the middle of my holidays with my children, the Easter holidays, I got a phone call from the hierarchy to say that I had to put him back to work’,” Ms Button said.

“(The principal) didn’t want him back there because of the first allegation.”

The meeting was held in the presence of an Education Department official and another Cherbourg resident. Minutes were taken of the conversation.

Wakka Wakka traditional owner Cynthia Button wants an investigation into the response to allegations against Mr Day.

“He nearly started crying when he told me the story. I was right into him. I said: ‘Why did you let him back here?’ He said: ‘Aunty Cindy, I didn’t want him back here.’ ”

It can be revealed the principal previously assured the girl who reported Mr Day for alleged child-sex abuse in 2022 that the teacher’s aide would not return to the school after he was suspended in September that year.

The girl’s mother – who cannot be identified to protect her daughter – told The Australian of her despair at discovering Mr Day was allowed to return to the school, and that he had allegedly gone on to abuse another girl.

Her daughter told her of Mr Day’s alleged abuse years after it allegedly occurred. “It happened to her when she was in grade 4, up until grade 6, because she went off to high school,” the mother said.

“I told her I would take her straight to the police. She wasn’t ready at the time because she obviously was afraid, scared, emotional (and) I guess because it’s a small community word gets around quick.

“So I just told her to let me know when she was ready to go to the police, and ‘I’ll take you straight down’. She did that a couple of weeks later, months maybe.

“She spoke to police, the school principal, one lady who worked for the Education Department. And got nowhere.”

The girl told police locations of the alleged abuse and the names of other people she believed may have been inappropriately touched or could be witnesses. She said she thought teachers may have seen or known something because of the way they looked at her.

Police told the girl they did not have the evidence to charge Mr Day at the time, and closed the case pending new information. “She was told if somebody else did come forward that would have reopened her case,” her mother said.

“The school principal reassured my daughter that he was not going to allow him back there to work. But obviously after they did their own investigation on him, and he was cleared, about a month or two later on I found out he was back at the school, working.

“It was very upsetting. We gave up in the end, and just had to let nature take its course, I guess, and like they said, sit back and wait for somebody else to come forward to reopen the case.”

She added: “I said (to the principal) ‘Are you going to have him back here working? Because I hope not.’ His exact words to my daughter were ‘I can reassure you that I won’t have him back here’.”

Mr Day was arrested only this month after another girl made new and separate allegations that he had repeatedly raped her over a five-month period.

Police then told the girl who made the 2022 complaint they were charging Mr Day over her alleged abuse too, her mother said. Mr Day is also accused of sexually abusing a third girl.

The Education Department on Tuesday declined to say what steps it took to investigate Mr Day. “The staff member’s suspension was lifted in April 2024 following extensive investi­gations by both the department and the Queensland Police Service, which found insufficient evidence to substantiate the complaint,” a spokeswoman said.

Ms Button has called for a full investigation into the school and the handling of complaints against Mr Day.

Cherbourg mayor Bruce Simpson on Tuesday said the council voted unanimously to remove Mr Day as an adviser following his arrest. “I can’t comment on offences specifically, but we have removed him from our elders advisory council in our last meeting,” he said.