Can Victoria police do anything right?

They apologise for failing to protect children from known pedophiles. Once again it needs a newspaper to budge them into doing the right thing

VICTORIA Police has apologised over its failure to protect nearly 700 children who have been knowingly exposed to convicted sex offenders. This follows revelations in The Australian today that police failed to notify child protection authorities that children were coming into regular contact or living with hundreds of registered sex offenders.

Victoria Police says an audit has revealed that 667 children have been exposed to 376 offenders since 2005. In most of the cases, sex offenders had told police they were in contact with children, but police didn't notify child protection authorities, which is a mandatory obligation under state laws.

Assistant Commissioner Jeff Pope has admitted Victoria Police did not meet its basic child protection responsibilities. "Unfortunately what it means in this case is that on these occasions we haven't properly notified DHS and properly discharged our obligations to mandatorily report that children are at risk,"Mr Pope said today. "It won't happen again, and it's a very unfortunate oversight, and we're very sorry that it's occurred."

The offenders included a parent or a parent's new partner or spouse, housemate or close friend.

The state Ombudsman's office announced it is investigating Victoria Police management of the sex registry and the Department of Human Services has formed a taskforce to review all of the cases.

Previous Ombudsman reports have criticised the government's management of child protection, which has been under fire following revelations DHS had placed children in the care of convicted sex offenders and failed to conduct criminal checks on prospective carers.

The police have confirmed three offences involved the same family, but no charges were laid because the offender had died.

Opposition community services spokeswoman Mary Wooldrige said the government must overhaul the child protection system. "The Ombudsman's already revealed children have been placed with sex offenders by John Brumby's government," she said. "Now we find hundreds more children have been placed in harm's way by the most basic failures in the government's responsibilities. "We believe these situations need to be exposed in a comprehensive review of the system."

SOURCE

Note that I have a special blog on Queensland cops, there is so much misbehaviour among them. And there's been plenty of posts lately. Two today.