Bureaucratic punishment: when public servants act as judge and jury

How utterly sickening is that? These anonymous bureaucrats have the power to ruin a kid’s life, even after he was found not guilty in criminal court. It turns out that, more often than not, they choose to never give acquitted men their right to resume their work – as lifeguards, or teachers, paralegals, doctors, you name it. Endless professions in Australia now require anonymous strangers to determine whether these men are safe around children. And they almost always err on the side of caution.

It's happening everywhere. Ros Burnett is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford and the author of a series of studies on the impact of false allegations of abuse. One study, which involved 30 people (24 males and 6 women) who were investigated but never charged, or charged but then acquitted, found many who “faced impassable barriers against working with children or vulnerable adults ever again.” The study reported that in the UK the Disclosure and Barring System (DSB) consistently excludes people “who have fallen under a cloud of suspicion” even if they are found not guilty of any criminal offence.

The upshot is “damaged reputations and ruined careers. Innocent men and women are left without a career, while institutions lose skilled and caring employees,” report Burnett and her colleagues, mentioning one woman who was forced to step down from a charity she herself had founded after a “safeguarding’’ report “could not rule out all possibility of risk.”

I’ve talked to families whose sons had their careers destroyed, even after an allegation was found to be false in court. Well-qualified young men have been forced to shelve life plans to become a pharmacist, or chiropractor, or paramedic, after authorities refused to issue the required certificate. Of course, publicity which names an alleged perpetrator can further derail such career plans. I once found myself pleading with the editors at a Melbourne newspaper, asking if they could take down the four-year-old news report naming the “sex creep” who’d faced charges in a Victorian magistrate’s court. The creep was a university student who’d been accused of “sexual touching” on an interstate sporting trip. That newspaper report has the potential to put the kibosh on any job opportunity that might arise for this well credentialled young man.

When it comes to bureaucratic punishment, the public servants take it upon themselves to do their bit to safeguard the community from these “predators”, with no apparent consideration of fair treatment for the people concerned.

Five years ago, I tweeted about a newspaper story, commenting on the “poor, sad face” of a teacher shown leaving court after being acquitted of all 13 charges of sexually assaulting three schoolgirls. I suggested he would never recover from this ordeal.

I was so right. Soon after that the teacher, Simon Phillips, contacted me and I have been in touch with him ever since, as he sends occasional updates on ongoing indignities he has suffered. It’s just unconscionable how bureaucrats have made him jump through hoops.

Like the phone call from a case officer from the Office of Children’s Guardian, which came out of the blue sometime after he’d applied for the WWCC. He received the unexpected call whilst sitting on a bus surrounded by people.

As Phillips reports: “She demanded that I explain why I should have the certificate back. Why did the girls make their accusations? What behaviour had I been doing that was wrong? I asked if I could set a time to speak later and in private. The lady said this was my only chance to explain. I received a letter not long after rejecting my application.”

After extensive investigation, the group monitoring misconduct for the Department of Education eventually agreed with the court’s finding but Phillips still can’t get that WWCC, despite using a lawyer for subsequent applications.  

Whenever he applies for jobs, he’s asked about the gaps in his employment. “My response has been to produce a well-crafted letter from my solicitor explaining the case and a copy of my clean police record. It’s very common for the interview to end there. I was told numerous times, ‘We wish to not employ someone with such a past.’”