‘Significant’ failings: Damning findings after foster children placed with murderer

Two foster children in the care of the state were allowed to live with a triple killer in western Sydney even after staff were informed of the risk, an internal review has found.

In December last year, Regina Arthurell, formerly known as Reginald Arthurell, moved into a home with a Sydney grandmother and a foster child. Arthurell served decades in prison for two counts of manslaughter and one count of murder.

The Department of Communities and Justice received a report at that time, which was screened, triaged and peer-reviewed before being closed. A second child started living in the home on March 5.

The daughter of the woman Arthurell had moved in with raised the alarm on 2GB radio in March, prompting the department to launch an urgent review and the foster children, aged 12 and 14, to be separated from the convicted killer.

The review found the department “did not identify, or act on, relevant information already held”. Relevant checks of the child protection case management system were not completed, information was accepted at face value without adequate investigation, and the department lacked urgency and clarity of roles, responsibilities, and processes.

“The offender’s history stood out as a clear indicator that they should not have been residing with children without a thorough, holistic risk assessment,” the review found.

Some department staff members will face misconduct proceedings.

Department secretary Michael Tidball said the review highlighted “significant shortcomings” within the department’s child protection response.

“The children were not placed at the centre of the decision-making processes, and this is unacceptable,” he wrote.

Arthurell was jailed for nearly 40 years after being convicted of stabbing her stepfather to death in 1974, bashing a man to death in a robbery in 1981, and beating her former partner to death while on parole in 1991. She was released on parole in 2020.

Arthrell was presenting as a man at the time of the killings and has since transitioned to a woman.

She was placed under strict supervision orders upon her release after the judge found giving her complete liberty would present too much of a risk for the community.

“For her to be completely at liberty in the community would simply be far too dangerous,” NSW Supreme Court Justice Button said in 2021.

“A frail, even physically disabled, person can inflict fatal harm once armed with a weapon.”

Her supervision orders included wearing an ankle monitor, providing a weekly schedule of her movements, disclosing her criminal history to health care professionals, abstaining from alcohol and handing over usernames and passwords.

The supervision order expired in 2024.

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