Kylie Dempsey was dining at the Old Town and Country Tavern with her two year-old daughter and a girl, 12, when faced with convicted child sex fiend and ex-Blue Heelers actor Jeremy Kewley.

“He was looking at the children and said ‘they’re beautiful, you should come into the next room’,” Ms Dempsey said.

“I said ‘I would stop if I was you, you should be aware I know who you are’.”

Ms Dempsey had seen Kewley at Rutherglen Primary School on Saturday when she cast her vote in the Victorian election.

The Border Mail reported on Tuesday and Wednesday on the community outrage at the Victorian Electoral Commission employing Kewley after he was jailed in 2016 for child sex offences.

Yet on Wednesday night, Kewley was hosting a trivia session at the tavern.

“I felt angry and sick and thought he can’t be here,” Ms Dempsey said of seeing Kewley.

She complained to a waiter at the hotel and then posted on her personal Facebook page.

Old Town and Country Tavern owners Ray Sharawara and Mark Marantelli responded with an open letter on the hotel’s Facebook page on Thursday morning.

They stated the were unaware of Kewley’s record and cut ties with him “AS SOON AS WE WERE NOTIFIED OF THIS PERSON’S PAST (sic)”.

“We sincerely apologise for making this error of judgement and for any distress it may have have caused,” Mr Sharawara and Mr Marantelli posted.

The pair, who declined to speak to The Border Mail, will now extend police checks on workers at the hotel to those not directly on the payroll.

Ms Dempsey said no child was safe around Kewley based on him having justified his crimes to a Beechworth man as “just a mistake” involving “only a few boys”. 

She said he had wanted to hold her toddler while she voted at Rutherglen, an offer that left her uneasy. 

Kewley’s residence in Beechworth has also created angst with complaints made about him occupying a public housing unit.