Special arrangements for transport of Carenne Support director's child

It has been reported that a special agreement has been struck between Geoff Salmon, director of Carenne Support Ltd and a Special Needs Transport Service operator Dick Spears to make special arrangements regarding the transport of his son. These arrangements allow Mr Spears to over declare the number of kilometres traveled and receive overpayments from the NSW Department of Education and Training.

Mr Spears operates what Carenne Special School staff call the Oberon run. He runs his minibus in the area around the town of Oberon. Mr Spears is paid to take Mr Salmon's son to his home near Oberon, but an arrangement has been struck between Mr Salmon and Mr Spears to drop the student off at a home in Kelso when requested. It is alleged that Mr Spears does this without knowledge of the special transport unit and still declares the full kilometres of taking Mr Salmon's son home. This can result in over declarations of around 50 kilometres per day.

On some days when this arrangement is carried out Mr Spears uses another minibus with his wife as a driver and transports Mr Salmon's son to Kelso while he continues his own route. A number of staff allege that the department has not approved the splitting of the run in two as they did not know that Mr Spears had been transporting Mr Salmon's son to Kelso instead of Oberon.

Staff at Carenne Special School are well aware of this arrangement and have said nothing about it until now.

Carenne Support director appears in court

Charges laid against Geoffrey Salmon, 54 were mentioned in the Bathurst Local Court yesterday. Mr Salmon, a director of Carenne Support Limited faces charges of unauthorised entry of a vehicle and obstructing traffic in relation to an alleged incident involving a Carenne Gate protest vehicle on 11 December 2009.

The matter will be mentioned again on 12 April 2010.

Day 3 of the Withyman case

During the third day of the Withyman case applications for the case to be adjourned were made by both the NSW Department of Education and Training and former Carenne Special School teacher, Anna Blackburn.

The education department was unsuccessful in its application, however Miss Blackburn was successful and the case has been adjourned until 22 March 2010. Miss Blackburn has been referred to the court registrar for assistance in applying for pro bono legal representation.

DET staff talk up new principal on Carenne Gate

A DET computer has once again been used to post to this blog. Today, a comment was posted stating:
This wouldn't of happened if Neil Moon was the principal at the time, he is a great man and leader. He did a brilliant job as principal of Holman Place SSP. No doubt the executive at the time knew of this.

This posting comes despite Carenne staff being told that posting to this blog or speaking to the media is considered a breach of the Code of Conduct.

A trace of this post revealed that it was posted from a DET computer with the number 153.107.33.156.

Withyman case to resume tomorrow

The case between David Withyman, a former student of Carenne School and the state of NSW continues in the Sydney District Court tomorrow.

It will resume at 10AM in court room 13E.

The Special Needs Transport Service puts staff before other parents

It has been revealed that a parent whose two daughters attend the Carenne Special School has been refused Special Needs Transport assistance by the Department of Education and Training, despite having to make a 40 Km round trip twice per day.

The Department of Education and Training will not provide assistance to the students as they claim their parents can bring them to and from school.

Despite this claim, a teacher at the Carenne Special School, Janelle Kemp receives transport assistance for her son to be transported to and from school by Carenne Support Ltd, an organisation central to the Carenne Gate affair. Staff claim that Mrs Kemp has a suitable vehicle to transport her son to school and claim that the rule stating parents mustn't be able to bring their children to and from school to be eligible for transport assistance must have been relaxed or overlooked in her case.

The Carenne 'Mafia'

After a day's work, the blog has been restored with no content lost.

This morning between 7AM and 8AM the attack promised by "ringostar" on Thursday against this blog was carried out. Ringostar had posted a threat that by Saturday morning the site would be no more and attributed this to the Department of Education and Training's legal team being at the school.

The attack was carried out by a user using the name "omerta", a word used by the Sicilian Mafia to refer to their code of silence. A sign saying "Stop Snitching" was placed on the front page of the site with all other articles deleted.

The attack was carried out by an amateur who managed to add themselves to the administrator's list of the blog and deleted items in the administration section of the blog. They forgot to remove their account name and email address from this list when the attack was complete. A non-broadband connection was used by the attacker.

As the site is located in the United States, authorities are investigating.