A Victorian man convicted of raping a 14 year old boy in a public toilet in 1996 has successfully obtained a working with children check.
The Herald Sun reported that back in 1996 after being raped, the young boy immediately went to police and reported the crime. The defendant who was 30 at the time, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty.
He was convicted but received a wholly suspended nine month sentence so he didn’t spend any time in jail for the crime.
He now wants to work with disabled children and despite his initial application for a WWCC being rejected, he successfully appealed to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
The average number of victims for one paedophile is twenty. The Herald Sun headline “One-off Molester can work with kids” is potentially very misleading and suggests the boy being raped was simply a case of misfortune and likely not to happen again. There is nothing to suggest this at all apart from the fact that there have been no additional charges.
Re-offending rates are high for male paedophiles at 21% within 5 years of the first offence and 25% at 20 years. And these are conservative figures, there have been studies showing reoffending rates as high as 67%.
Source: How do convicted child sex offenders get working with children checks?