The former operator of a Sydney childcare centre where children were force-fed until they vomited, strapped in high-chairs for hours and had their heads shoved into garbage bins, has been permanently banned from working in the disability support sector.
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00:00Unfortunately, it's not the exception. We have looked at many centres and there are
00:09more documents coming out every week from the regulator and there's so many horrendous
00:15cases in childcare centres of abuse, kids being yanked, pulled, broken bones, lack of
00:23supervision, unqualified educators. Yeah, it's really horrific.
00:28Have you spoken to any of the families after this development with Thomas Fanous who ran
00:32this childcare centre that we spoke about a bit earlier?
00:34Yes, I spoke to the mother of one child who was put in a high chair for six hours a day,
00:41five days a week, had water sprayed on his face for amusement and he was tied to the chair
00:47and she was thrilled at what happened because her son was non-verbal and autistic and she
00:54wanted to give him a voice and she said that her son is now an NDIS recipient and to think
01:01that someone who ran a centre like that where her child was so abused, she's glad that he's
01:07been permanently banned. So what does that ban mean though for Thomas Fanous?
01:13It means that he can never work in the NDIS, so he doesn't work in childcare anymore, he now can't
01:19work in NDIS anymore. He's permanently banned across every state and the regulator won't say what's
01:27happened but what they're saying is that the investigation into other areas is still ongoing.
01:32So what is next? So what's next in childcare is there is a parliamentary inquiry that is ready
01:39to kick off in New South Wales which will look at what's really going on in childcare and just how
01:45effective or ineffective the regulator is. You've uncovered more cases like this during the course
01:51of your investigation, how often do cases like this result in prosecution? Very rarely, unfortunately.
01:59That's what's quite unique about this case. Very rarely, in most cases when you're looking at
02:05childcare workers who are doing terrible things to kids, the regulator is just saying read the policies
02:11and don't do it again. So why are you taking your investigation now? We are looking at other centres,
02:17other big chains and we keep on looking at some of these documents. We've had thousands of former
02:24regulators, educators, parents who have written in and contacted us and you know we've got leaked
02:32footage, leaked documents, so we're going to keep going on this because there's some many more things
02:37to come out. And that's how the Fanus case came to your attention for your original Four Corners story?
02:41It came to our attention, there was a Standing Order 52 ordered by Greens politician Abigail Boyd and there
02:51was a first tranche which was made public and it did mention Jumpstart. So we started having a look at
02:59Jumpstart from that and then we tracked down Thomas Fanus to find out what had happened to him and he was
03:05working in NDIS and that's when this all came out.
03:11was the greatest thing about him.
03:13That's why the man he was doing in the town and the young man of the party.
03:16That was sit on camp in the town.
03:19And that was thedle 2nd of the time where he started and left out of the town.
03:22So what happened was that the day he ran into a island, I was looking at the building
03:25and taking off the distance, he was looking at himself from that.
03:27So how did he teach thesamus?
03:30He was looking at the beginning of the town and that now I was looking at, so I'm trying to
03:33get a little bit more, but the town of the town was looking at the place instead.
03:37And I was looking at the location of the town, that he was looking at a little bit and
03:39across the scene of the town and that I thought was looking at that.