Butlin’s, a family holiday resort, has sacked a children’s lifeguard in Somerset after it was revealed he was a convicted paedophile.
Dean Carelse was sentenced to jail in Queensland, Australia, in 2022 on twenty charges, including grooming a 13-year-old boy for sex and being in possession of child exploitation images.
Carelse had been working at Butlin’s resort in Minehead for almost a year, with British background checks not picking up the Australian conviction.
An investigation by Australian broadcaster ABC tracked down Carelse at the Minehead holiday park, and published photographs taken as late as last week of him in a lifeguard uniform.
Butlin's said Carelse had been employed on their lifeguard team for the past 10 months but told the ABC that he had since been sacked.
A spokesman said the company had immediately launched an investigation and that Carelse "no longer worked for us with immediate effect”.
The spokesperson added Carelse had “falsified information” on his application, meaning that a background and criminal records check had come back clear.
Additional checks for staff from overseas would now be carried out, he said.
The offences occurred while the 43-year-old was a teacher at a private school during the late 2010s in Queensland.
Carelse, who had been a prominent rugby and water polo coach, and was the high school coach of the first black Springboks captain Siya Kolisi, was deported back to his native South Africa after his sentence.
No restrictions were placed on his movements.
He was first arrested in November 2019 after Queensland police raided his home and discovered more than 2,000 child exploitation images, as well as indecent images of students at a swimming carnival in swimwear.
