A convicted sex offender who masturbated in front of a 16-year-old girl on a train has been allowed to work with children following a court ruling.
The Sydney man, whose identity has been suppressed, was given a Working With Children Check (WWCC) by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal last week after his ‘disqualified person’ status was successfully overturned.
The 65-year-old had earned that status after a series of “worrying” incidents involving the 16-year-old train passenger, an ex-girlfriend and his female housemate.
A convicted sex offender who masturbated in front of a 16-year-old girl on a train has had his application approved for a check for working with children (stock image)
The then 19-year-old man was convicted in November 1977 of masturbating in public and ejaculating on a 16-year-old girl while on a train.
He told the court he had been masturbating before the teenager got into the carriage and had no intention of ejaculating on her.
Nearly two decades later, the man was convicted in 1994 of physically assaulting his ex-partner in public by grabbing her, threatening her and ‘squeezing her vaginal area’.
Less than a year later, the man was jailed for six months for masturbating in front of his 19-year-old female roommate, who was 17 years younger than him at the time.
Between 1977 and 1990, the man was convicted several times for other sex crimes, including exposing his penis, masturbating in public and showing pornographic material to a 15-year-old girl.
In 1992, he hit his ex-girlfriend so hard on the head that she fell to the ground.
The tribunal noted that the man’s most recent disqualification was more than 28 years ago, when he was convicted of two charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm following an incident with his then girlfriend.
“There is no evidence that the applicant has committed any further criminal offenses since then,” the tribunal wrote in its findings.
“He has been sober for almost thirty years, is a regular attendee of AA and his church, and has been a volunteer with AA and the charity for many years.”
The tribunal added that the man has studied at TAFE and has been receiving regular trauma therapy for this child abuse since 2019.
The man told the tribunal that for 20 years he had volunteered at an Alcoholics Anonymous office, answering telephones and selling literature.
The man told the court that he had already been masturbating before the young girl got into the carriage during the 1977 incident and that he had no intention of ejaculating on her (stock)
He prays every day and has been attending the same church for 25 years.
The man said that at the time he committed the offense he was too ‘numb’ to have a conscience and that he would ‘take it all back’ if he could.
He plans to marry this year to a woman he met while taking a TAFE course and who is aware of his criminal past.
The man added that he had “made amends” with the mother of his two children and had recently reunited with his daughter.
He said he was looking for a WWCC “to show that I am a safe person to be around children and to have the opportunity to show that people can change.”
His partner works and he also wants to be a ‘contributing member of society’.
The man would like to work as a consultant, handyman or cleaner and has been told by the charity that he needs a WWCC permit to work there as a volunteer.
In its final ruling, the tribunal said the man had made “significant efforts” to address his past offending, “much of which was related to substance abuse.”
The tribunal noted that if the man were unable to work for the charity, his risk of returning to substance abuse and reoffending would increase.
It accepted evidence that the man had been left unattended with children at AA and had recently taken a friend’s child to the zoo without other adults.
“There are no reports of concern regarding these incidents,” the report said.
The tribunal also noted that ‘none of his offenses were deliberately targeted at children’ and that the man was 19 years old when he was on the train at the time of the offence.
The tribunal ultimately ruled that the man would no longer be treated as a ‘disqualified person’ and would not, ‘on the balance of probabilities’, pose a risk of harm to children.