VIC Working With Children Check - Old Criminal Record Reason for Rejection?

[Alexandria1]

Hi. Recently an employee advised me that he would not be able to pass a 'working with children check' due to the fact that when he was 14 years old (he's now 62 years old) he was charged and convicted of carnal knowledge. His explanation is that at 14 years of age he had consensual sex with a 16 year old female, who he was later to find out, was on parole and proceeded to tell her parole officer. He stated that although they were both consenting, and the female confirmed this throughout the process, he was still charged and convicted of carnal knowledge. He advised based on this conviction, he had been rejected in the past when he applied for a 'working with children' card. Could he still have a criminal record? Is this be a reasonable explanation?

 

[Sarah J]

Yes, criminal records stay with the person. The question is, can the information be disclosed? Generally, offences where the person was younger than 18 and the offence was older than 10 years ago will not be disclosed (e.g. in court). There are exceptions to this and one of them is where the offence was of a sexual nature. Another one is disclosure to a child-scening unit (i.e. working with children check).

Therefore, the record will be disclosed to the agency conducting the checks and it is up to them whether they want to issue a licence or not.

See: "Criminal records" VLA