This publication relates to a closely observed investigation carried out by the NSW Department of Education Professional Ethics Standards (PES).

With a background in investigation and investigation management covering some forty years, I have never before witnessed such appalling, inept and immoral investigative practises.

Entrusted with investigating DoE staff complaints and allegations, it is naturally assumed that PES investigations are conducted by competent, objective personnel willing and able to consider all available evidence. That unfortunately does not appear to be the case.

The PES delve into matters of implied criminality and justify investigation outcomes as 'proven' in consideration of the civil onus of  a 'balance of probabilities' - as opposed to the more appropriate criminal onus of 'beyond any reasonable doubt'. By using the civil onus, PES investigators effectively by-pass common law safe guards to make life changing decisions about an employee's future based on assumption and interpretation. The civil onus is all well and good when resolving civil disputes but even then, only so long as the weight of gathered evidence is balanced in the first place.

From instigating information alone, an inexperienced and/or compromised investigator can be manipulated by an informant into developing a fixed mind-set about an investigated person's guilt or innocence. The compromised investigator is then likely to only focus on 'evidence' that they believe will  bolster their case, often ignoring anything that does not conform to or support that preconception. 

As the following detailed circumstances suggest, the PES appear to be very mindful of  departmental reputation protection to the point of containing and covering-up investigation impropriety and incompetence.

Finally, the PES rely on workplace non disclosure agreements (NDA's) to effectively gag investigated persons from openly discussing anything to do with their workplace, including individual PES experiences. Restricted from discussing the circumstances of an investigation with colleagues or others effectively prevents an employee from canvassing witnesses and/or seeking information in their defence. 

If this interests or concerns you, please read on;

This blog is particularly relevant to DoE employees who may be vulnerable or potentially vulnerable to malicious mischief from persons (family law disputes etc) intent on causing personal and/or professional harm.  As witnessed in the following matter, PES investigators have displayed a willingness to readily accept mischievous allegations on face value whilst showing little regard for employees, their families or even functionality of the Department of Education itself.

Employees under investigation understandably expect and trust that allegations/complaints be fairly, professionally and objectively investigated, including objective assessment of complainant reliability/credibility. It would appear however that this does not happen which is certainly not healthy for employees or the NSW Department of Education as a whole. 

During a casual conversation with a PES investigator acquaintance, the employee subject of the following investigation was told;  “ You do not take the PES on, because if you do, you're really screwed, particularly if you use a lawyer or union".  In other words, the PES do not like to be challenged and will up the ante against anyone audacious enough to question their authority. 

The witnessed matter involves a senior IT Support analyst being served a notice of dismissal for an alleged professional impropriety involving data access. The relayed circumstances  should not be considered a gripe on behalf of this employee who for the record, has now well and truly moved on. Having taken a personal interest in the matter, I however feel duty bound to alert the public and DoE employees in particular about this matter and how others might expect to be treated during a NSW Department of Education PES investigation.

The subject employee is a highly regarded and very experienced senior technician with a twenty (20) year unblemished service record. The employee suddenly and unexpectedly found himself target of a PES investigation instigated at the insistence of a (male) person who had already been discredited in other jurisdictions. The PES informant is a person of questionable character with a long (police recorded) history of threatening behaviour toward the DoE employee and others.  

The PES informant's allegations were bizarre and bore little or no relevance to the Department of Education or the accused person's employment. Some were matters of implied criminality which should have been immediately referred for police investigation, rather than bungled about by the PES.

Without doubt, the obviously inexperienced PES investigator assigned to the case was easily 'handled' by the informant into accepting the allegations at face value and becoming emotionally compromised in the process. The investigator's behaviour strongly suggests she formed an unwavering opinion about the employee's guilt or innocence before the investigation even began.  

There is also evidence suggesting an inappropriate relationship existed between the  investigator and informants which would have undoubtedly served to further impair the investigator's ability to proceed objectively. The lack of objectivity became painfully obvious by the accusatory and confronting manner in which the investigator approached the employee's colleagues and supervisors, prompting one disgusted supervisor to lodge a formal complaint.

When finally interviewing the employee, the PES investigator’s attitude was noticeably aggressive, accusatory and incredulous despite the employee willingly providing technical, testimonial and pathological evidence completely refuting all of the allegations. Nevertheless, the investigator remained fixated on securing a case against him. 

As mentioned, the first (male) PES informant is well known to police with a long history of threatening behaviour toward the employee and others, including several persons unconnected to the DoE employee or the Department of Education. The informant has in fact been charged by police with stalking and malicious intimidation. 

Some twelve months after initiation of the investigation, the original investigator was, quite suspiciously, removed and replaced by a newly appointed investigator who describes himself on social media as having 'a focus on serious child protection concerns'. An attitude, as you will see not obvious at any time during this investigation.

After a long and fruitless campaign by PES investigators, common-sense eventually prevailed when a (now replaced) higher authority rightfully directed  that all of the original allegations be dismissed. 

One would expect that that would have been the end of it for this once dedicated and now traumatised employee but no, having found themselves totally humiliated and shown up as naïve at best and incompetent at worst, PES investigators continued to pursue the employee by turning the exercise into an all-out witch hunt.

In that pursuance, PES investigators interviewed the employee’s former partner (of ten years previous), a person of declared motive and vexatious history with the NSW Police and Family Law Court. The current partner of the original informant, this person has a well known and openly stated Family law motivated agenda to ‘destroy’ the employee in any manner possible. 

Both informants have made, and continue to make malicious mischief for the employee and others, including the female informant's former husband (between the employee and her current partner). 

Obviously desperate for anything to justify an unjust, lengthy and costly investigation, PES investigators eventually encouraged the employee's former partner (2nd informant) to allow access to the employee's ten-year old son. Very much under the influence and control of his mother and her partner (1st informant) at the time, the child was enthusiastically interviewed by PES investigators without the employee’s knowledge or consent. Prompted by his mother and encouraged by PES investigators, the child's only utterance was that he once asked his father whether or not a new kid in the street would be attending the same school as himself.

The primary function of the PES has to be the protection and interest of children however, by encouraging an emotionally vulnerable 10 year old dependent child with obvious parental alienation issues to make (false) allegations against his own father, is nothing short of disgraceful. To make matters worse, PES investigators would have been fully aware when conducting this interview that information extracted from the child and used against his father, would have significant financial and parental support consequences for the child himself. 

The child was only temporarily domiciled with his mother when interviewed by the PES and it should be noted that, prior to the child’s mother taking a temporary and short lived interest in him, the child lived with and was cared for by his father for the majority of his life. The child is currently in father's care. 

Apart from obvious financial consequences, one can only imagine the intermediate and long term psychological damage caused to the child following this outrageous encounter with the PES. Although presently protected by his father from full realisation of the significance of that interview, in time the child will certainly discover what it involved and  bear guilt for his family's inevitable financial decline and probable displacement. 

What threat, promise or inducement was held out to the child to encourage him to make the 'offending' statement is anybody's guess, and despite repeated and legally represented demands for access to details of that interview, the PES repeatedly refuse to release anything.  

A psychological assessment is the very least the PES should have arranged prior to interviewing the child which (as revealed during post interview psychological assessments) would have immediately identified the unnatural influence that the child's mother and her partner had over him. 

Had PES investigators acted professionally and objectively, then confirmation of the false and malicious nature of allegations made by both informants could have been easily obtained from several witnesses willing to testify, including the female informant's own parents. Subsequent representations and statements tendered by witnesses to the PES have all been ignored.

Following the PES interview with the child, this petty, victimless and completely harmless incident described by the child became the 'base' allegation to justify continuation of their investigation, thus extending the inquisition a further twelve months. Throwing resources into this investigation as if the future of safe education in the state of NSW depended on it (when in reality the future of the PES most probably depended on it), investigators scrutinised the employee’s data usage going back years in obvious hope of finding some irregularity, indiscretion or other on which to hang their hat.

Despite their efforts, the only matter on which the PES were able to adversely report was in direct relationship to the matter involving the alleged neighbourhood child incident.

The alleged incident involving the neighbourhood child occurred some four years previous during a period when, as part of his day to day duties, the employee was required to access and adjust data for hundreds of public-school enrolees every month – including the said neighbourhood child.

Again, the alleged 'base' allegation involves a harmless and totally disputed incident of the employee allegedly addressing his son’s question on whether or not a neighbourhood child would be attending the same school.

An allegation taken from an emotionally fragile ten-year-old child unconscionably exploited by PES investigators

Never given the opportunity to respond to the new (base) allegation and whilst going about his normal duties, the employee thought it prudent to examine for himself whether or not he accessed that child's data. The PES jumped on this activity as interference and immediately added it to the 'base' allegation. Given the disgraceful manner in which the 'base' allegation was constructed in the first place, anything relating to that allegation has to be considered morally untenable. 

To finally rest on this one harmless and victimless 'base' allegation as grounds to dismiss a 20 year experienced, productive and dedicated employee, really highlights the 'scalp count' mentality that appears to be a motivating factor within the PES. 

Not even the PES have inferred or even suggested that anything the employee has allegedly done caused harm, embarrassment or breached anybody’s privacy. This cannot however be said of PES investigators who, apart from using a vulnerable child to their own advantage, appear to have committed quite a number of serious improprieties during the investigation including (child related) privacy violations and at least one very concerning breach of the Family Law Act.

The employee’s alleged action/s actually pale in comparison to the procedural and ethical improprieties that appear to have been committed by PES investigators, yet the Department of Education refuse to even acknowledge receipt of several serious and well documented complaints. 

The fact that a known antagonist with an established agenda to ‘destroy’ the employee was able to set in motion a two-year investigation in the first place is outrageous. For it to continue even after dismissal of the originating allegations, is beyond outrageous. 

Again, the purpose of this publication is not to air the woes of the aforementioned employee, but to hopefully alert others about what I firmly believe to be an amateurish and unsupervised internal investigation unit completely out of control. 

https://www.badapplebullies.com/nswinvestigations.htm