Victoria's working with children checks are among the weakest in the nation, an investigation by the state's ombudsman has found, and must be changed to protect children from predators.
While most other states and territories have the discretion to block people from working with children on the basis of information such as child protection reports and intervention orders, Victoria's screening authority can only deny or revoke a person's clearance if they have been charged with a crime or been subject to disciplinary findings.
Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass has today called for a strengthening of the state's laws.
"I was shocked to discover that our working with children laws are so much weaker than other parts of Australia, and that simply has to change," Ms Glass told the ABC.
Ms Glass's inquiry was sparked by an ABC investigation into former Melbourne City Mission youth worker Alex Jones.
Jones befriended, groomed and sexually assaulted a 13-year-old boy, referred to by the pseudonym Zack.
The ABC revealed that Jones was also the perpetrator of a massive data breach when he used his log-in to a government database to access private information about the state's vulnerable children.
Last year, Jones was sentenced to six years in jail for the assault.
The ombudsman's investigation has revealed Jones was accused of a similar crime in New South Wales, years before he met Zack, but was never charged.
"This case has exposed serious flaws in our Working with Children Check scheme," Ms Glass wrote.
The investigation, tabled in parliament this morning, found evidence Jones "was the subject of serious interstate child protection concerns" at the time he was employed by Melbourne City Mission.
It found NSW Police records indicated that between 2008 and 2009, Jones was investigated as a "person of interest" in relation to several alleged offences, including allegations of rape, sexually exploiting a child and posing as a young person to access supported youth accommodation.
The records indicated Jones was arrested and interviewed once, but not charged in relation to the allegations.
Zack's mother, known by the pseudonym Sue, said she was shocked that Jones was able to get a working with children check despite the NSW allegations.
"I actually could not believe what I was hearing," she told the ABC.
The ombudsman's investigation also found evidence that Jones had been flagged by NSW child protection authorities in 2009 as a person suspected of sexually abusing a child and was also subject to multiple Apprehended Violence Orders in NSW, including an order restricting his interactions with a young person deemed at risk of sexual exploitation.
But because he was never charged with a crime, this information did not appear in his national police check, nor was it disclosed to Working with Children Check Victoria.
Even if Victorian authorities had been aware of the investigations into Jones, under the state's laws they would not have been grounds to refuse him a working with children clearance.
"The fact that Alexander Jones was able to obtain and subsequently keep a Working with Children clearance highlights clear legislative shortcomings limiting the effectiveness of Victoria's Working with Children Check scheme," Ms Glass wrote.
The ombudsman said even when authorities knew about an active police investigation into Jones, they were hamstrung from reassessing and revoking his clearance until charges were laid.
"Absurdly, it was dishonesty charges, rather than the multiple reports about his alleged sexual exploitation of children, that ultimately provided the statutory basis to reassess Alexander Jones's Working with Children clearance," Ms Glass said.
She said Victoria's laws needed to be changed to bring them into line with other jurisdictions and better protect children.
"Working with Children Check Victoria should be able to act on information that indicates someone poses an unjustifiable risk to the safety of children, regardless of whether criminal charges are brought," she said.
"Some painful lessons have been learnt. For the safety of our children, more needs to be done."
Ms Glass found Jones was never qualified to work with children, and that he deceived Melbourne City Mission (MCM) about his employment history and qualifications.
"Red flags emerged early in his employment but did not result in further scrutiny of his background – even when his behaviour was clearly at odds with the standards expected of a qualified and experienced case worker," Ms Glass wrote in her report.
The ombudsman was scathing about MCM's "misplaced empathy" in response to Jones's unprofessional behaviour, including counselling him to tie his shoelaces to avoid tripping over".
While working for MCM, Jones gained access to a database known as CRISSP, which holds personal details of child protection clients.
Jones's access to the database should have been revoked in 2017 when he changed jobs, but his account was not deactivated until more than 15 months later.
In that time, Jones had conducted 186 searches of the database and accessed information relating to more than 20 MCM clients.
The ombudsman found the Victorian department responsible for the database gave incorrect and contradictory information to Zack's mother about what information Jones had accessed, initially saying Jones had been able to view all of Zack's case information as well as details about his siblings, then telling her Jones would have been able to see Zack's name and address, but no other information.
This prompted Sue to move her family due to safety concerns, but this move was ultimately unnecessary. While database search logs provided to the ombudsman showed Jones searched for Zack's information six times over a five-week period in 2018, the investigation concluded Jones had been unable to access any information about Zack.
Sue said she hoped the Victorian government would follow the ombudsman's recommendations and change its laws to allow more information to be taken into consideration.
"I don't think that everyone that has an allegation against [them] should automatically lose their working with children check, but it at least needs to be looked into," she said.
"If there's repeat offending or repeat allegations that's not someone I'd want working with my children."
Victorian government considering urgent changes to regulations
A Victorian government spokesperson said it was reviewing the legislation governing working with children checks, in line with the ombudsman's recommendations.
"It is important this review aligns with the review currently underway of the reportable conduct scheme — and that we take the time to get this right given the complexity of the scheme," the spokesperson said.
"While we review this legislation to ensure agencies have the ability to share and act on appropriate information, we are urgently considering changes to the regulations to enable the Commissioner for Children and Young People to share findings with Working With Children Check Victoria, to allow WWCCV to act on that information."
Shadow Attorney-General Michael O'Brien said a Coalition government would fix the system.
"The Ombudsman has exposed that Labor's poor legislation has created loopholes that only benefits paedophiles and those who would exploit children," he said.
"A Liberals and Nationals Government will urgently amend the Worker Screening Act to implement the Ombudsman's recommendations and give Victoria's children the protection they deserve."
'We need to be acting now,' Children's Commissioner says
Australia's Children's Commissioner Anne Hollonds said a nationally consistent approach to working with children's checks was needed, in line with recommendations from the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered almost five years ago.
"This is more than urgent. We need to be acting now," she said.
"Today, children are at risk because we haven't acted on those recommendations.
"We have no idea how many other situations like the one in this report could be happening right now.
"We can only presume that children today are still not safe, because the systems we have in place are not fit for purpose."
In a response included in the ombudsman's report, Jones said he did not access Zack's information in CRISSP, denied being investigated for alleged sexual offences in NSW and said he had never been served with an Apprehended Violence Order in the state.
In its response, Melbourne City Mission CEO Vicki Sutton said the organisation had implemented "extensive reforms to improve processes for controlling access to confidential and personal information" and had "strengthened all pre-recruitment checks under our control".
"We are sorry for our part in the system failures identified in the report and their impact," she said.
The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing said it had taken action to improve data security in response to the Ombudsman's recommendations and separate recommendations from the Victorian Information Commissioner.
"The Department takes its privacy responsibilities seriously and is sorry for the distress this has caused," it said.
