A man who was previously convicted of multiple domestic violence assaults has been granted a Working with Children Check (WWCC) to become a church minister.<\/p>\n
The man’s case is one of the last appeals filed in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) before the state government changed the laws<\/a> preventing the tribunal from overturning decisions made by the NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian (OCG) about WWCCs.<\/p>\n Family and domestic violence support services:NSW Domestic Violence Line<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a01800 656 463Lifeline<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0131 114Men’s Referral Service<\/a>\u00a0on 1300 766 491Mensline<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a01300 789 978Full Stop Australia<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a01800 385 578Emergency services on Triple Zero (000) if you need immediate care<\/p>\n The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted of assaulting his former wife on multiple occasions in the 1990s before being charged with her attempted sexual assault in 2003, which was witnessed by at least one of their children.<\/p>\n He was also convicted of assaulting his current wife in 2012.<\/p>\n The man’s application for a WWCC clearance was automatically denied last year due to the 2003 offence, but he appealed the decision in the tribunal in July last year.<\/p>\n Under child protection laws, certain crimes, including those involving sexual offences, automatically disqualify a person from being granted a WWCC clearance.<\/p>\n The tribunal last week overturned that decision and ordered that he be granted a WWCC clearance to allow him to become a church minister.<\/p>\n Among the reasons given for the NCAT’s decision was “the significant passage of time” since his offending and that his victims were not children which meant “there are no objective factors which suggest risk to the safety of children”.<\/p>\n Litany of prior convictions<\/p>\n According to court documents, during the 2003 incident the man dragged his victim into their bedroom while she screamed, waking up their children.<\/p>\n