By Cam Lucadou-Wells
An after-school care service in the South East delayed reporting a stepfather’s sexual abuse of a girl with “horrible consequences”, a court has heard.
A former coordinator and a staff member pleaded guilty to failing as mandatory reporters to immediately report the abuse that was disclosed by the girl on 27 August 2020.
After their dithering, it wasn’t reported to police until the mid-afternoon the next day.
By that time, the child had been allegedly sexually assaulted another three times by the perpetrator on the afternoon of 28 August, Dandenong Magistrates’ Court heard.
Instead of reporting to authorities, the staff member initially left a letter about the matter on the co-ordinator’s desk.
The co-ordinator didn’t discover the note until the following morning.
For several hours, the co-ordinator says she tried to contact support service Child FIRST. At lunchtime, Child FIRST returned her call and advised her to ring Child Protection.
At 1.30pm, the stepfather reoffended. Authorities received a report by mid-afternoon.
Star News has chosen not to name the staff or service so as to not identify the child.
Mandatory reporters are required to immediately report concerns to Child Protection or Victoria Police.
A defence lawyer told the court that the co-ordinator’s moral culpability was lower than her colleague’s.
The Victorian Institute of Teaching had also suspended the co-ordinator from work, pending an investigation into the matter.
Magistrate Tony Burns, in sentencing the co-ordinator on 11 August, said she should have contacted police via triple-0 “straightaway”.
“This is a very unfortunate circumstance.
“It’s a horrible consequence that due to the tardiness by your staff member and to a lesser extent by you that a child victim was left in a position to being preyed upon which could have been prevented.”
Mr Burns noted the co-accused staff member had been “fairly leniently” dealt with by another judge.
His sentence was constrained to match it – under the principle of parity.
In the end, both received a 12-month good-behaviour bond without conviction, plus a $500 fine to the court’s charity fund.
The maximum penalty is a $1817.40 fine.
