Social worker accused of fraud no longer in job

The B.C. government says a Kelowna social worker accused of stealing money from teens in government care no longer works for it.

The Ministry of Children and Family Development responded Friday to allegations against Robert Riley Sanders, who is accused of defrauding dozens of youth, mainly Aboriginal, out of government support money.

“The individual in question is no longer employed with the B.C. public service,” the ministry said.

The ministry said it has taken several steps because of the allegations to protect youth, including new financial controls aimed at ensuring money is not misappropriated.

An independent review of the ministry’s financial controls, completed earlier this year, recommended a system’s change to prevent staff from being able to both order and print cheques without the involvement of a second staff member.

The ministry says it will review its payment process, and look at measures to reduce the reliance on cheque-based payments.

According to a class-action suit filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday, the public guardian and trustee allege Saunders manipulated the teenagers into an “independent living” program, but then kept the money, leaving them vulnerable to becoming homeless.

The ministry, the director of child welfare, and the Kamloops financial institution where the money was deposited are named in the lawsuit.

The director of child welfare was accused of not adequately supervising Saunders and failing to have protections in place to restrain, control, detect and prevent his misappropriation of funds and benefits.

The lawsuit claims the ministry team did not hold the weekly and monthly consultations with Saunders as required by policy, failing to ascertain whether the children assigned to him received adequate care.

Vancouver lawyer Jason Gratl, acting for the public guardian, said they had identified about 24 youths e victimized by Saunders, but there may be as many as 90, most Indigenous. He said sums of between $30,000 and $40,000 were involved in each case.

The lawsuit said the plaintiff, identified only as R.O., was “vulnerable to abuse given his or her history of parental neglect, medical neglect, transiency and exposure to traumatic circumstances.”

None of the allegations has been proven in court.