Eliza Barr: How I brought a child sex offender in child-related work to justice

Child sex offender Blake Ross illegally worked at more than 140 events as a medic after serving a jail term for abusing underage girls. It was left to me to detect him, senior journalist Eliza Barr writes.

Sex offenders are slipping through the cracks in the current child protection system but journalist Eliza Barr caught one in the act.

Sex offenders are slipping through the cracks in the current child-protection system, with one who illegally engaged in child-related work more than 100 times going undetected until I caught him in the act.

I first stumbled on registered child-sex offender Blake Ross while reporting at Sutherland Local Court in 2019, where he was being sentenced for forgetting to do his obligatory annual check-in with police after serving six months in jail for having sex with two underage girls.

After my initial report, I uncovered social media pictures seemingly showing Ross – a one-time paramedicine student – in a medic uniform.

He was working as an “event medical operations manager” for a firm contracted to major events including Vivid, which prompted me to ask them many questions. Were they aware he was a registered child-sex offender?

Were they aware of his criminal history and inability to obtain a working with children check?

The business alleged “an external compliance system” did not identify Ross was not allowed to work with children.

An investigation initiated only after I raised these issues with NSW Police and the Office of the Children’s Guardian ultimately saw Ross charged with working at more than 140 events in defiance of his obligations as a registered child-sex offender.

These events included junior rugby league games and music festivals. He was ultimately sentenced to a 12-month jail term, serving eight months without parole, after pleading guilty to repeatedly breaching his obligations as a registered child-sex offender.

Blake Ross.

Ross in his medic uniform.

At the time, an Office of the Children’s Guardian spokesman said it was up to employers to meet their obligations. “Organisations need to identify who in their organisation requires a working with children check and then confirm their clearance status with the Office of the Children’s Guardian,” he said.

“This is a simple process of entering a person’s WWCC number and date of birth through our online system.”

Either the system is not so simple or organisations face so little enforcement and accountability that it is left to journalists to notice and report when someone is doing the wrong thing.

There is currently no way for parents and guardians to independently verify a person’s eligibility to work with children by their name alone.

Instead, they must blindly hope that the organisations and individuals they entrust their children to are upholding their responsibilities, complying with guidelines and being honest.

The system built to keep our children safe should not force parents to cross their fingers and hope it is working correctly – or that a sharp-eyed journalist will pick up a complete failure.

This case is a disturbing example of how the system is reactive rather than proactive – and it has to change. Now.

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Originally published as Eliza Barr: How I brought a child sex offender in child-related work to justice