My name is Allan Weatherall and I am a former Mobile Road Safety Camera Operator (MRSCO 232320). I was contracted to Serco Asia-Pacific (Traffic Camera Operations) in Victoria in the W5 (Bendigo) police zone between March 2021 and March 2022 when I was forced to resign over workplace safety and legal compliance matters.
When I originally submitted my Whistleblower Report to the Department of Justice approximately one year ago I fully hoped and believed that the systemic legal compliance and safety violations that I observed while working for Serco, and reported, would be fully and thoroughly investigated – not merely because the Department of Justice is supposed to be all about legal compliance and integrity, but also because camera operator and public safety was the central concern of my report. However, despite manifold claims and promises of investigation, what has actually taken place has been an extraordinarily determined effort (by the Department of Justice) to actually NOT properly investigate my claims. In fact, during the period in which the Department of Justice was claiming to investigate, I received advice from them that I now know to be untrue and misleading. And it would now appear that the false information I received was intended to delay and misdirect my quest for justice. And the manner in which their “investigation” was done seems designed to allow them opportunity to dilute the seriousness of the matters I reported and to protect their contractor, Serco Asia-Pacific. So let me explain:
As far as investigations go, this matter really could not have been any simpler. The core allegations I made against Serco were that they were repeatedly positioning camera cars dangerously and illegally on freeway locations and encroaching on the emergency lanes – something that is in clear violation of Rule #178 of the MRSCO guidelines and is actually illegal – effectively endangering both camera operators and members of the public and risking repeating fatal tragedies of the past. All of my claims about this are all fully verifiable due to the nature of the paper and digital documentation that is gathered during camera sessions. Each camera session records the exact position of the camera car in relation to the road way and also records the particular operator. Any car that is parked less than 300cm from the first lane on a freeway with an emergency lane is actually encroaching upon the emergency lane and is in clear violation of the law. It really is that simple. On numerous occasions I observed camera cars positioned in the middle of emergency lanes, and I also provided the Department of Justice with 18 documented examples of violations of my own, citing location numbers, job numbers, dates, and the exact position of the camera car for all of those sessions, which are all fully verifiable. These examples I provided are just the tip of a much larger iceberg. By conducting a simple data-based analysis of Serco’s camera session records it is actually an easy thing to come up with a comprehensive list of all legal violations, know where they happened, when they happened, and which operator committed those violations. (Just give me access to Serco’s computer systems for a day and I will come up with that list for you myself!)
I provided the Department of Justice with the evidence I had personally gathered, then I told them exactly where to look within Serco’s paper records and database of camera sessions in order to fully and independently verify my claims. All they had to do was to request those files and documents and every claim I have made would have been supported. And they would also have a comprehensive list of safety violations to use to improve the system. In addition to this, I also reported to the Department of Justice the coercion and intimidation that I suffered at the hands of my local managers when I attempted to bring these safety and legal compliance violations to their attention. (I was actually told to not cause problems because Serco was struggling to make their contract profitable due to the very competitive bidding process they had been through). I also provided further evidence to the Department of Justice in the form of email correspondence, roster information and email evidence of the incredulous denials, deception and lack of integrity exhibited by Serco TCO and senior management as I attempted to submit my report in accordance with their own “Speak Up!” whistleblower protection policy – a policy which I have since discovered is completely worthless and one that Serco are very happy to completely ignore when it conflicts with their commercial interests. And I also provided evidence of Serco’s attempts to buy my silence. In my view, Serco’s attempts to subvert the course of justice and their attempts to buy my silence actually constitutes criminal activity on their part. Incredulously, I cannot seem to find anyone willing to actually investigate this at all.
So all of my evidence was provided to the Department of Justice who delayed things just long enough for any legal recourse I may have had under Victorian workplace law to expire. Over the numerous months which followed the Department of Justice strung me along claiming to be particularly interested in my case, promising that investigations were underway, and even claiming (fraudulently) that there was a “special investigation” underway which they were not at liberty to discuss with me. When I inquired into the progress of that investigation they then claimed that they had commissioned Price-Waterhouse-Coopers to conduct an in-depth investigation into my claims and that I should pass my evidence on to them. When I was eventually contacted by PWC they themselves denied that their involvement constituted an investigation at all but was part of some kind of routine safety audit and PWC showed no interest in looking at any of the evidence that I had prepared to pass onto them. So, despite my detailed report, despite my telling the Department of Justice where to look for the evidence to support my claims, in the last 12 months they have failed to conduct any detailed analysis of actual camera sessions, but instead claimed to have “sampled” smaller sets of selected data, resulting only in a promise to fix things in the future. As far as I know the managers who coerced and intimidated me have not been questioned or held to account for their behaviour. The corrupt Serco senior management have not been held to account for their attempts to bury their wrongdoing or to buy my silence on this matter. And I thought fraud and bribery were actual crimes… silly me! And I thought the Victorian Department of Justice were interested in upholding the law! Silly me! The incredulous conclusion of their “investigation” is that they claim to have found only a small number of violations from their small sample analysis and directed Serco to improve their training. My reply to that is that they did not find a larger number of legal compliance violations because they repeatedly refused to look where I told them there was an entire mountain of evidence!
The Department of Justice’s unwillingness to apply the same standard of law to Serco as they do to Victorian road users highlights a gross failure to uphold justice. I estimate that state wide there are many hundreds, if not thousands (or even tens of thousands) of speeding fines that have been issued to Victorian road users where the evidence for those violations was obtained illegally. It is little wonder that the Department of Justice, who owns the contract for Traffic Camera Operations, is eager to protect their contractor and avoid the embarrassment of retracting thousands of wrongly issued fines. Currently it is simply impossible to know the scale of the problem because both Serco and the Department of Justice have repeatedly failed to conduct the data analysis and full audit that is needed to reveal the scale of that problem. And because of the uncorrected flaws in the system, the safety violations I reported continue to occur, which are likely sooner or later to result in the deaths or injuries of Victorian road users.
When I began to work for Serco I took seriously the claims that integrity, safety and legal compliance were vitally important to my work as a Traffic Camera Operator. When I was licensed by the Victoria Police to operate the camera equipment I took seriously their claims that integrity was vital to retain public support for the speed camera program. Even when I saw speeding fine revenue bleeding many tens of thousands of dollars each day from struggling rural communities for violations typically caused by a mother rushing to pick up her kids from school, or someone rushing to get to work on time, I told myself that public safety was paramount and the ignorance of the law was no valid excuse for violating the law. (In a single two hour session on one back street in Bendigo my camera once detected violations that amounted to fines worth more than a year of my salary!!) So you can imagine my disillusionment to discover that the Victorian Department of Justice apparently has one set of laws for the public, yet is willingly turn a blind eye to legal violations of their own contractors… which in this case is Serco Asia-Pacific – a multinational corporate behemoth which they are are strangely reluctant to thoroughly investigate and prosecute.
Perhaps it goes without saying that the last 12 months has, for me and my family, been one of tremendous stress and difficulty related to the sudden end of employment in a job which I actually found fulfilling. My employment was ended by corruption within Serco and they have conveniently washed their hands of me. And the Department of Justice, having been made fully aware of these violations, has been no help in delivering any justice at all. Such is the sad state of affairs in Daniel Andrews’ corrupt Victoria.
For media comments I can be contacted by email ( allandweatherall@gmail.com ) or through WhatsApp, Viber, Telgram or Signal on +610418319368.
Allan David Weatherall
Former MRSCO 232320
Serco Whistleblower.
