By JASON COLLIE
Seven security measures were broken on the day ACC worker Janet Pike was murdered, a report reveals.
The investigation by Occupational Safety and Health, obtained yesterday by the Herald, found that a closed-circuit television system was not on, Mrs Pike did not take her portable panic button with
her and she should have been accompanied by another worker when she saw schizophrenic Johnny Manu at ACC's Henderson office.
ACC is cleared of breaking the Health and Safety in Employment Act, but inspector Eleanor Kietzmann wants it to enforce its safety procedures and make carrying panic buttons mandatory.
She said Mrs Pike did not appear to follow some in-house guidelines - including seeing Manu in the specially designed interview rooms which were visible to other staff instead of a family room - although she admitted that all the measures together still might not have saved the 34-year-old.
"The rules should be mandatory and not discretionary," said Eleanor Kietzmann.
The other breaches related to seeing clients without an appointment and not recording violent incidents or assessing potential troublemakers.
Mrs Pike died from a single stab wound to the chest when Manu - now serving a life sentence for murder - went to the Henderson office claiming he was owed $350.
Society overall had a culture of tolerance, said Eleanor Kietzmann, and Mrs Pike's husband, Stephen, last night called for all employers to ditch the "she'll be right" attitude to worker safety.
"You have got to wake up," said Mr Pike, who migrated from England three years ago. "We can't sit back and think it will never happen. Some organisations should really consider safety over customer service."
Kevin Mottram, OSH's acting West Auckland branch manager, said ACC needed to consider how it dealt with potentially violent people, even banning those considered very dangerous.
ACC spokesman Tom Bridgman said the report would be studied, but the organisation had already reviewed security at every branch and had stressed to staff the need for security.
OSH fought unsuccessfully to see Manu's ACC file after police said it contained warnings about his violent past, but ACC refused under the Privacy Act.
