Clean Slate Act protecting abusers?
The Herald has a story about how someone with indecency convictions passed registation as a teacher, seemingly due to the Clean Slate Act. The timeline is:
- 2002: Convicted of three counts of committing an indecent act.
- 2004: Clean Slate Act passed
- 2011: Registered as a teacher, passed police vetting, did not disclose convictions
- 2014: Failed police vetting – they advised he not have unsupervised access to children, young people or vulnerable members of society. Certificate not renewed
- 2015: Passed police vetting
- 2016: Teachers’ Council renewed certificate
- 2017: Passed police vetting, Teachers’ Council renewed certificate.
- 2021: Censured by a teachers disciplinary tribunal in for misconduct in 2017, including making a sexual hand gesture to students, but was not required to inform his employer of the findings
- Aug 25: Jailed for four years and five months for indecently touching young girls at a private after-school tutoring company, and making objectionable child abuse material.
There appear to be several failures here.
- Why did the Police flag him in 2014, but not in 2011, 2015 or 2017? Did they interpret the Clean Slate Act correctly?
- Why did the Teachers Council register him in 2017 despite having been told in 2014 he should not [edit] have unsupervised access to children. Did they ask any questions about this?
- Why did the tribunal in 2021 not require him to inform his employer?
The combination of these led to him abusing nine girls. This was preventable.