Accused worker had a history
By Paul Bibby
November 3, 2008
STAFF member sacked from the Peninsula Village Retirement Centre for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in his care had already been the subject of complaints of inappropriate behaviour toward residents and staff, sources from the centre say.
The 39-year-old man is alleged to have vaginally assaulted an elderly resident about three weeks ago, one of two alleged assaults that sparked an investigation by police and the Department of Health and Ageing.
The Herald has also learned that another nurse left the home last month after the Nurses and Midwives Tribunal of NSW found that he had downloaded pornography while on duty at his previous job at Wyong Hospital.
Phillip Charles Myer was found to have downloaded sexually explicit pornography, including accessing an incest site while working as an enrolled nurse in the hospital's mental health unit.
The tribunal ordered that Mr Meyer be removed from the Roll of Nurses in NSW and that a period of at least two years elapse before he be allowed to re-enrol.
He was employed by Peninsula Village before the tribunal's finding and the Herald is not suggesting that he behaved inappropriately while employed there.
The honorary chairman of the board of directors of the Peninsula Village nursing home, Darrell Pannowitz, said that proper employment protocols were observed when Mr Meyer was employed and reference checks including previous employers and police record checks found "no prior allegations of misconduct or inappropriate behaviour".
The management of the nursing home has repeatedly declared that there has never been a case of abuse or neglect found against the centre.
But a source from the homesaid that staff had made a number of verbal and written complaints about the 39-year-old man for about nine months before the alleged sexual assault. "He would stare weirdly at the private parts of other staff and residents and smile in a strange way when he was washing residents," a nursing home source said.
The source said the man had also made inappropriate sexual comments to staff members.
"The staff were disgusted. They would ring up and say 'I'm not coming in because I don't want to work with him."' Last week, the home was issued with a notice of non-compliance by the Department of Health and Ageing for failing to report an alleged assault, employing nine staff without proper police checks and providing misleading information.
SOURCE: The Sydney Morning Herald
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