Man guilty of sexting child given Working with Children clearance
The man, who can only be known by the pseudonym GTN, asked a 13-year-old girl for a 'hot' and 'steamy' photo, which she sent in 2008. The man was 18 years old at the time, and the pair had attended the same high school, socialised and texted frequently.
The photo was discovered by the girl's father, who contacted police.
GTN was charged with one count of possessing child pornography, which was dismissed, and one count of inciting a person aged under 16 years to commit an act of indecency, which he pleaded guilty to in 2010.
The judge found he wasn't forceful in his request for the girl's photo, but 'wanted the photographs to be explicit and sexual', and placed him on a 12-month good behaviour bond without a recorded conviction. The maximum penalty he faced was a two-year jail term.
The man is now 35, married with three children and runs a business with his wife. He sought a WWCC to volunteer at his child's football club and gain business contracts with schools and other organisations.
However, the Children's Guardian had deemed GTN to be a 'disqualified person' based on his guilty finding and refused him a WWCC clearance.
Questions have been raised about the suitability of the WWCC scheme following a series of childcare workers being charged with child sex abuse offences, including notorious paedophile Ashley Paul Griffith, who pleaded guilty to 307 charges, and Joshua Dale Brown in Melbourne, charged with more than 70 offences.
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