Former Cadbury’s security company ordered to pay out worker’s compensation for anxiety from discrimination and harassment

A FORMER Cadbury’s security guard has won a big compensation claim after her employer stopped making payments and seemingly vanished into thin air.

Cadbury’s factory in Claremont. Picture: MATT THOMPSON

A FORMER Cadbury’s security guard has won a compensation claim worth more than $25,000 in backpay after her employer stopped making payments and seemingly vanished into thin air.

The worker, identified only as ‘O,’ made a claim for workers compensation in August 2016 in relation to an anxiety condition, which she said related to discrimination and harassment in her work as a security officer at the Cadbury’s factory in Claremont.

The matter was brought to the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Tribunal of Tasmania after the subcontracted company, Delta 1 Security Services Pty Ltd, trading as NSG Australia, stopped paying compensation to the worker in July 2018.

The company had been paying the worker $1581 per fortnight as well as making direct payments to her general practitioner for medical treatment for her condition, which left her “wholly incapacitated for work,” the tribunal heard.

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In September 2016, the worker received a letter from QBE Insurance telling her the employer did not have a current workers compensation policy at the date of the claim, and as a result, QBE would not be covering the employer for the claim.

NSG continued to make sporadic payments until July 2018 when the worker’s solicitor contacted them and received no reply or further payments of compensation.

On October 1, 2018, the worker’s solicitor contacted her previous manager who said he “did not believe that NSG Australia was still operating.”

The paymaster at NSG, based in Victoria, said he was no longer working for the company and he understood the company was “no longer operating as it had lost the contract for security at the Cadbury site.”

An ASIC search revealed the business name had been cancelled in March that year, but listed the director as being a Kyle John Hepburn.

In November, Mr Hepburn told the worker’s solicitor he had never even heard of the company and he had reported the matter to Victoria Police.

“It is clear that the employer accepted its liability under the Act to pay to the worker weekly payments of compensation,” the tribunal’s finding, recently made public, read.

“The evidence is that the employer, at a later time, simply stopped meeting its obligations to the worker.”

“In any event, it is clear Mr Hepburn asserts he has no knowledge of either entity,” the Tribunal said in its findings.

The tribunal ruled that the employer must pay the worker just over $25,000 in back pay as well as ongoing weekly payments of compensation.

The employer must also pay for the worker’s general practitioner consultations of about $1150.

If the payments are not made, the nominal insurer will cover the costs.

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