TWO former employees of the Yooralla disability service at Benalla have been accused of serious sexual misconduct in cases that come after a third Yooralla employee was jailed for rape.
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The cases have prompted fresh calls for the state government to ban disability workers from the sector if they are found to have engaged in serous misconduct.
A Fairfax Media investigation can reveal that Victoria Police sexual crime detectives recently charged a supervisor, Colin Hoyle, from the Benalla supported- employment facility.
Hoyle is due to face court in Wangaratta on Thursday after an 18-month police investigation.
He resigned from Yooralla last year and faces multiple counts of rape and indecent assault of a person with a disability.
A colleague at Benalla was sacked in March after facing allegations he engaged in inappropriate sexual behaviour with a disabled worker.
A Fair Work Australia hearing in September upheld this Yooralla employee’s sacking.
The hearing was told of claims the employee — whom Fairfax Media isn’t naming for legal reasons — asked a disabled worker whether he had been looking at pornography.
He was also accused of talking about genitals and touching the crotch of a disabled worker.
Fair Work deputy president Reg Hamilton identified a “delay in notifying police” about the “serious” allegations, which included claims another disabled employee was called a “fat lazy f---”.
Yooralla, which took over the Benalla facility last year, said it moved to have the two men suspended or sacked as soon as it learnt of allegations.
Some disability sector insiders claim earlier complaints about the men’s conduct were not adequately dealt with by Yooralla or its predecessor at Benalla, CAL Industries.
Yooralla said yesterday the initial complaints about Hoyle’s behaviour were made in 2011 when CAL was in charge.
Further complaints by the disabled worker’s family last year — when CAL had amalgamated with Yooralla — were referred to police and the accused man was stood down.
Chief executive Sanjib Roy said Yooralla was working hard to improve background checks after former carer Vinod “Johnny” Kumar was last month jailed for 18 years for raping two disabled Yooralla residents and sexually assaulting another in a Melbourne residential facility.
