Source: The Daily Telegraph
Date: 13 September 2016
McDonalds is set to introduce criminal background checks for adult employees after Derryn Hinch used parliamentary privilege to out a convicted paedophile who was working at a Penrith restaurant.
The Human Headline revealed the man gained a job at the Penrith Panthers Leagues Club McDonalds and was offering lifts home to teenage boys.
It was claimed in the speech to the senate that the mother of a boy who had been interfered with by the man, when he ran a canteen at a baseball club, alerted the McDonalds of his prior history.
“How could a convicted paedophile get to work with teenagers at one of our most famous fast food outlets at a famous football club? How could a young victim turn up to play baseball and discover his attacker was the umpire?,’’ he told the senate on Tuesday night.
“The mother of one of his young victims, I’ll call him Paul, the mother saw what was going on and alerted McDonald’s. She was virtually told to go jump. Told he was an employee, had a right to work there, and basically go away.”
Mr Hinch claimed he had spoken to McDonalds who agreed to change hiring procedures.
“I have to give McDonald’s credit for acting swiftly and decisively after my staff alerted them,’’ he said.
“We alerted McDonald’s on August 31. We raised many questions about the absence of criminal background checks.
“Within a week we were told that McDonald’s IT department was implementing a compulsory criminal background check for over 18- year-old applicants, and predicted this will be rolled out nationally within six to eight weeks.”
The explosive speech comes after the Victorian Senator — twice jailed for contempt of court and three times convicted of breaching suppression orders — named paedophiles, rapists and murderers and demanding a national register for sex offenders in his maiden speech.
Mr Hinch insists a national register must be made public so paedophiles can be easily spotted. He said only “top brass” of police had access to the register.