In-Depth Legal Analysis: The Childcare Centre Negligence Media Report

This report provides a detailed legal analysis of a media report concerning the abduction and sexual assault of children at a North Perth childcare centre, focusing on the disciplinary actions taken against the centre for inadequate supervision. It identifies relevant areas of law, including Tort Law (negligence), Consumer Law, Contract Law, Administrative Law, and Criminal Law, explaining their relevance to the case. The report further discusses how the law functions to ensure predictability, encourage/discourage conduct, grant rights, impose obligations, enforce rights, and provide remedies, using specific examples from the media report. It also explores the importance of legal knowledge for the involved parties, the media's influence on public perception of the law, and the potential impact of public pressure on legislators and judges. The analysis draws upon legal principles and relevant legislation to provide a comprehensive understanding of the legal issues at play. Desklib provides students with access to similar solved assignments and past papers to aid in their studies.

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1. Identify the areas of law that are relevant to the chosen media report, and
explain how they are relevant to the matters outlined in the report. Students
should refer to the areas of law listed in the Topic 1 lecture presentation. Not
all the listed areas of law will be relevant, but each media report involves at
least two areas of law. (4 marks)
The media article chosen for this report encapsulates the abduction and sexual
assault of two children who were attending a North Perth childcare centre, and the
disciplinary action taken against the childcare centre by the Department of Local
Government and Communities for its failure to provide adequate supervision.
Tort Law
Negligence is referred to in the article as well as the proceedings taken against the
childcare centre. The Centre failed to provide adequate supervision on the day the
two children were abducted and furthermore, no educators at the Centre were aware
they were missing and “the children were found by a passer-by in Hyde Park an hour
after allegedly taken” (Tyrrell 2016).
Tort Law has three elements that need to be proven in order to file a negligence
claim: that the victim was owed a duty of care; that the duty of care was breached;
and that damage or injury was caused due to the breach of care (Graw, et al. 2015,
457). Therefore, it is fair to say that the childcare centre acted negligently.
Consumer Law
As the Childcare Centre provide services to consumers its responsibilities and safety
standards are regulated under Consumer Law.
The childcare centre breached the law in not providing adequate supervision, and as
such an unsafe environment, which led to the serious harm of two small children.
Consumer Law protects the rights of the victims so they have the power to take legal
action against the centre and seek compensation for the harm caused to them.
Contract Law
An agreement formed between two or more parties is a contract and contracts are
governed by the law (Graw, et al. 2015, 60). The article demonstrates examples
such as: educators working at the child care centre will be employed under an
employment contract; agreement and terms of care between the childcare centre
and the consumers (being the guardians of the children attending the facility).
These agreements are all examples of contracts governed by Contract Law.

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Administrative Law
Administrative Law is of relevance to this article as the Department of Local
Government and Communities is taking disciplinary action against the childcare
centre for the failings associated with the care provided on the day of the incident.
Administrative Law is also relevant due to the suspension, by the Education and
Care Regulatory Unit, of the childcare centre’s operations and licence.
Government departments, such as those mentioned above, enforce compliance with
statutory standards and have the ability to administer action should these not be met.
Criminal Law
Vincenzo Mule, who was charged over the alleged abduction and sexual assault of a
five-year-old boy and four-year-old girl, broke the law by committing a criminal act.
Prosecution and punishment for such acts is administered by the State via criminal
law.
2. The law serves a number of different functions. It:
Ensures reasonable predictability in daily life;
Contract Law is an example of this function and this article, although not mentioned,
demonstrates this in the form of employment contracts between the North Perth
Childcare Centre and its employees. Employment contracts give details on the
obligations and expectations of the employees and the standards to which they are
required to perform.
As each employee would have at some stage accepted employment terms and
conditions and as such made aware of their duties and responsibilities, the daily
functioning of the Centre would have been reasonably predictable with respect to
being safe from harm and injury.
Encourages and discourages certain conduct;
Criminal Law prohibits certain conduct and enforces punishment on those that have
committed a crime, such as the alleged offender in this article Vincenzo Mule.
Furthermore, licencing requirements of the Education and Care Quality Authority for
the childcare centre would encourage certain conduct e.g. adequate supervision and
qualified personnel.
Grants rights and powers to individuals and groups of people;
The children and families of the children attending the North Perth childcare centre
have the right to certain standards. Under Standard 2.3 of the Australian Children’s

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Education and Care Quality Authority, it clearly states that each child should be
protected, adequately supervised, that precaution to protect the child from harm is
taken, incidents and emergencies are effectively managed and that educators are
aware of their roles and responsibilities (Australian Children's Education & Care
Quality Authority n.d.).
Tort Law gives power to the children and families in this case to pursue legal action
against the childcare centre for negligence, consequently Consumer Law may hold
them liable for breach of contract for not meeting the consumer’s agreed terms and
conditions.
Imposes obligations on individuals / organisations to meet their legal
responsibility;
Corporation Law imposes basic legal duties and requires all company directors to act
diligently and in good faith (Graw, et al. 2015, 421). With reference to this media
article, duties and standards are specified under the Education and Care Services
National Law Act and the Education and Care Services National Regulations.
It is claimed that the Directors of the childcare centre breached their duty of care and
acted negligently therefore ‘may be personally liable to compensate the company or
others for any loss or damage they suffer; and may be prohibited from managing a
company’ (Australian Government 2016, 194).
Allows for the enforcement of recognised rights and duties; and
The Department of Local Government and Communities' Education and Care
Regulatory Unit enforces safety standards upon the childcare centre and if these are
not met, have the power to take legal action against them for not complying.
Because the childcare centre failed to uphold their legal obligations and “breached
nine sections of the Act” (McNeill 2016) the State Government under Administrative
Law has the power to take disciplinary action against the Centre and suspend its
license.
Provides remedies when an injustice has been done.
The four-year-old girl, 5-year-old boy and their families have experienced a great
injustice, due to the childcare centre’s negligence and the crime committed by
alleged perpetrator Vincenzo Mule.
Tort Law allows these victims the right to seek compensation from the childcare
centre for the pain and suffering endured.
Criminal Law allows for the prosecution and punishment of the perpetrator.

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Demonstrate how the law functions in these various ways, by reference to
specific examples within the chosen media report and the areas of law you
identified in question 1.
You need only provide one example per point. However, you must discuss all
six functions, and where possible, each point should use a different area of law
as illustration. Be sure to explain specifically how and why you came to your
conclusions. (6 marks)
3. By reference to the legal issues contained in the chosen media report, explain
why it was important for the relevant party/parties to know the law in the
circumstances? How did, or could, the party/parties have applied the law to
their advantage? (4 marks)
Directors need to know the law so that all those under their duty of care (employees
and subsequently the children) are safeguarded through current and relevant
employment contracts, through having qualified educators on hand, through
understanding and enforcing the conditions and requirements of the licence held by
the Childcare Centre, including reporting requirements, and through ensuring
adequate supervision to ensure no breach of safety/security aspects. If the Centre
had understood its duty of care in all aspects, it could have prevented or mitigated
the incident which occurred with Vincenzo Mule and subsequently any potential
compensatory damages which it may have to pay to the parents of the children.
The staff of the Centre could have applied the law to their advantage. If they were
aware of the legal requirement to have an existing employment contract they could
have withdrawn their services. Alternatively, they could have contacted the
Education and Care Regulatory Unit and made them aware of the Centre’s
breaching of its licence conditions e.g. qualified staff, adequate supervision, etc.
It would be harder for Vincenzo to apply the law to his advantage as it was he who
abducted and abused the children. However, if he is required to pay compensation
his lawyers may be able to claim that the Centre should also be responsible for part
payment due to its negligence.
4. How do the media influence public perceptions about the law and its
administration? How might public pressure impact legislators and judges in
establishing the law? (3 marks)

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The media has a strong ability to influence and persuade public opinions and
perceptions and this is proven numerously on high profile cases, such as this article
concerning the child sex offender.
Social media is a perfect example of how quickly cases can go viral and draw
attention from hundreds and thousands of people in a short period of time.
An example of this is a post on the Western Australia Police Facebook page, dated
21 April 2016, reporting on the North Perth childcare abduction case. The article was
shared 1.8 thousand times and had 2.1 thousand comments, the majority of which
were from the public expressing their disgust (Western Australia Police 2016).
The public feel strongly towards high profile cases involving domestic violence,
murder, terrorism, sexual assault, and violence against children and because the
media is the main communication line between the public and the world they have a
great power to influence people’s perceptions. (Catherine Happer 2013)
Being the information age public attitudes and reactions towards sentencing would to
some degree, impact legislators and judges’ decisions, as information regarding
cases and sentencing is easily accessible and the public have various media
channels to publicise the case and gather support in order to protest against
legislators and judges’ decisions. An example of this being the rape and murder of
Ebony Simpson whose case drew so much media attention and public outrage, that
police when reviewing murderer Andrew Peter Garforth’s life sentence appeal stated
“the community interest in retribution, deterrence, protection of the community in
such situations may so strongly outweigh any regard for rehabilitation” and
furthermore Garforth’s claims for compensation relating to alleged assaults by fellow
prisoners were withdrawn because of the immense public outrage that was received
(Blanco 2016).
On the contrary public reaction towards the media may draw attention to the
complexities associated with law; an example of this was the case of Arthur Freeman
who threw his daughter off the West Gate Bridge and killed her. The Supreme Court
produced an audio recording which was made public and the reaction was huge.
Hearing the judge discuss the considerations which he had to take into account gave
the public a fresh insight into sentencing, with comments including: ''I had no idea
that sentencing was such a difficult and complicated process." (Kelsey-Sugg 2013)
Media is a proven influencer in the way in which people form their opinions and in
their subsequent actions. It would be difficult for law enforcement officials not be
susceptible to public pressure when establishing, interpreting and applying the law.

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Bibliography
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Australian Government. 2016. Corporations Act 2001. Federal Register of Legislation.
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Blanco, Juan Ignacio. 2016. Andrew Peter Garforth. August 26. Accessed August 26,
http://murderpedia.org/male.G/g/garforth-andrew.htm.
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media-distorts-our-perceptions-of-sentencing/4652996.
McNeill, Heather. 2016. WA News. Accessed August 19,
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