{"id":622931,"date":"2026-04-22T05:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/622931\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T05:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:59:08","slug":"significant-failures-led-two-nsw-foster-children-to-be-placed-with-serial-killer-review-finds-australia-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/622931\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Significant failures\u2019 led two NSW foster children to be placed with serial killer, review finds | Australia news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two staff members in the New South Wales<\/a> Department of Communities and Justice have been suspended following a review into why two foster children went to live with a convicted triple killer.<\/p>\n

The review, which was made public on Wednesday, found \u201csignificant failures\u201d by the department led to foster children aged 12 and 14 living alongside convicted murderer Regina Arthurell until her removal from the home<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

It was initiated in March after the NSW minister for families and communities, Kate Washington, apologised on 2GB radio, confirming the removal only came after the radio station revealed the situation two days previously. The investigation was led by the department\u2019s secretary, Michael Tidball.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Washington, who has weathered calls for her resignation <\/a>since the revelations, said two staff members had been stood down pending misconduct investigations into allegations they had not followed departmental procedures.<\/p>\n

She said their future was a \u201cdecision to be made by the department\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are difficult decisions made daily by our case workers, but we do expect them to follow department policies and procedures, and that\u2019s what didn\u2019t happen on these occasions that led to this awful situation,\u201d she told 2GB radio.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

The review said the department was warned about Arthurell\u2019s presence in the home on 23 December via a report from a member of the public via the department\u2019s Child Protection Helpline.<\/p>\n

But that report was closed on the basis of \u201cunverified\u201d information about Arthurell\u2019s \u201cage, mobility and supervision assumptions\u201d. Washington said this included that she purportedly used a wheelchair and required a full-time carer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just wasn\u2019t investigated, and that was contrary to policies and procedures in the department,\u201d said Washington. \u201cWe had capacity in the system at the time for an investigation to be undertaken. We had the resources. This was a wrong decision made against department policies and procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kate Washington, the NSW minister for families and communities. Photograph: Dean Lewins\/AAP<\/p>\n

The review identified a second failure on 5 March, four days before the initial radio report aired, when a second child moved into the home.<\/p>\n

Washington said approval for the move had gone ahead without a \u201csimple check\u201d of the department\u2019s system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have been able to see, from the previous report made in December, that there were concerns raised previously around Arthurell being in that household.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arthurell was convicted of two counts of manslaughter and one count of murder over three killings. They include manslaughter convictions for the stabbing to death of her stepfather in 1974, and the killing of a 19-year-old in a robbery in the Northern Territory in 1981.<\/p>\n

While on parole for manslaughter in 1995, Arthurell bludgeoned to death her former partner Venet Raylee Mulhall at her Coonabarabran home in the NSW central west, and was sentenced to 24 years in prison for murder. She was released in November 2020 and placed on an extended supervision order (ESO).<\/p>\n

At a hearing in 2021, a supreme court justice said Arthurell was making sincere efforts at rehabilitation but had a \u201cproclivity to violently terminate the lives of fellow human beings\u201d. Her ESO was not extended by the NSW attorney general after it expired in December 2024.<\/p>\n

Last month, a 2GB caller who identified herself as the daughter of the woman Arthurell had been living with, said she had alerted NSW police and Corrective Services after her attempt to warn the Department of Communities and Justice in December was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

NSW police visited the home in February on a call-out at a time when Arthurell was not present.<\/p>\n

The review said there had been \u201cfailures in the triage of the report received and assessment of risk\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cInformation was accepted at face value without adequate investigation,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe children were not placed at the centre of the decision-making processes, and this is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two staff members in the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice have been suspended following a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-622931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}