A paedophile former water polo coach convicted of grooming and possession of child exploitation material offences in Queensland, has been working as a children’s lifeguard in the UK, after Australian police did not share evidence of international victims. 

An ABC investigation has traced the former Sunshine Coast teacher and coach Dean Carelse, to Butlin’s Minehead Resort — a family holiday park in south-west England, where he has worked since early last year. 

A UK background check of the 43-year-old failed to pick up his convictions, which include grooming a 13-year-old boy for sex and 14 counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16 while he was a teacher and coach at a private Sunshine Coast school in the late 2010s.

Carelse was arrested after Queensland police raided his Maroochydore home in early 2021, where they recovered more than 2,000 child exploitation images, as well as indecent recordings of students at a swimming pool.

The South African national was sentenced to jail in Queensland in 2021, after pleading guilty to almost 20 charges and was deported to South Africa the following year.

He has had no restrictions on his movements since.

Contacted by the ABC about Carelse’s employment at the resort this week, Butlin’s confirmed Carelse was employed on their lifeguard team for the past 10 months but indicated he was sacked after the ABC made contact.

A spokesman said the company had immediately launched an investigation and that Carelse “no longer worked for us with immediate affect”.

Carelse has been photographed multiple times in a Butlin’s resort lifeguard uniform at Minehead and has featured in posts shared to social media by then-colleagues as recently as this week, the ABC found.

The resort’s Splash Waterworlds, where Carelse worked, allows children over the age of eight to swim without adult supervision, according to Butlin’s website.

‘Falsified information’

Butlin’s spokesman said the recruitment process had been in line with government guidance and included “enhanced DBS checks and right to work status, which came back clear”.

“The team member falsified information on their application,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman said the “severity” of the case had led the company to review “our policy and [we] can confirm additional checks for existing international team and future international applicants will be carried out”.

He said there had been “no issues of complaints raised” against Carelse in his time as a lifeguard.

The ABC has confirmed Queensland police uncovered a trove of evidence from Carelse’s devices, including details of South African child victims.

QPS then contacted their South African counterparts to alert them to the discovery.

A South African investigator said South African police then requested more information about local victims.

Months later, the investigator was told this would require a formal request via an international treaty.

Operation Nemo

The investigator, who was not authorised to speak publicly, said this information may have been able to help them identify local victims and bring charges against Carelse, which could have kept him in the country.

The investigator said this may have also helped an operation into an alleged paedophile ring in private South African schools – code named Operation Nemo – which Carelse is believed to have been in.

Asked why they had not shared intelligence in a case where children could be in danger, a QPS spokesman said QPS had done “due diligence”.

“As the material is child exploitation, it is not something that can just be sent. The QPS have no authority to send it without application in the form of an MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty) from South African Police. This has not occurred,” he said.

But the South African investigator said they did not request child exploitation material and only asked for victims’ names.

An official UK criminal check obtained by the ABC, and co-signed by an international recruiter, lists Carelse as having no previous criminal convictions, and “none recorded” under “Children’s Barred List Information”.

The enhanced certificate, issued by the UK’s Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) in March 2023, lists Carelse’s job as a child workforce lifeguard at Butlin’s Minehead.

Kolisi’s coach

Before moving to Australia, Carelse was a prominent rugby and water polo coach, who had become famous as the high school coach of the first black Springboks captain Siya Kolisi.

In media reports about Kolisi’s rise, Carelse is described as a “mentor” and “father figure” to the Springboks captain — who Carelse first met when Kolisi was a teen and he was “hostel master” at a prestigious Port Elizabeth boarding school.

Carelse was reported to have worked as the director of rugby and water polo at Matthew Flinders Anglican College in Buderim on the Sunshine Coast until 2019, when he was reported to have been fired for breaching the school’s code of conduct.

He also worked as a coach at Water Polo Queensland, and as a Game Development and Competitions Officer for the Sunshine Coast and went on to coach several underage teams after he was let go from Matthew Flinders, until his arrest in March 2021.

During his trial at Maroochydore Magistrate’s Court in March 2022, it was heard Carelse had made indecent recordings of students in their swim suits at a sports carnival in November 2019.

When he landed the job with Queensland Water Polo (QWP), the organisation described him as a “former South African National Inter-Provincial schoolboy player, a provincial premier league player … [who] had coached and managed south African school boys’ teams and national junior provincial teams,” as well as referring at national level events.

In a statement, the day after his arrest, QWP said he had been let go immediately “because he has been charged with serious criminal offences”. His license to teach in Queensland was also suspended.