Sydney Uni guards on job for 36 hrs: ICAC

Student safety was compromised at the University of Sydney when a private security operator deployed "ghost guards" in a scam, a corruption inquiry has heard.

University of Sydney

Source: wikimedia commons

University of Sydney security guards slept on the job and sometimes worked 36 hours straight, a corruption inquiry has been told.

Frank Lu, the former team leader of the university's private security contractor, told the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Tuesday some guards would work two or three 12-hour shifts consecutively.

ICAC is investigating an alleged "ghost guard" scam in which false names were used to defraud Sydney's top university of hundreds of thousands of dollars between 2009 and 2018.

In four separate weeks between 2016 and 2018, some $120,000 charged to the university was claimed using ghost guards' details.

Mr Lu, who was allegedly paid for 286 hours of work in one week in December 2017, said he would sometimes use false names to work 30 or 36 hours consecutively.

"I probably fall asleep for a few hours and then continued," the former Sydney Night Patrol employee told the inquiry.

He said when the university required an ad hoc task, SNP would sometimes get a guard already on-shift to complete the task under a different name.

"The university is not getting what it paid for, is it? The university paid for two guards and only one is doing it, correct?" counsel assisting Phillip English said.

"Yes," Mr Lu replied.

Mr Lu said he had left SNP in December 2018 but denied it had anything to do with SNP's subcontractor SIG no longer giving him weekly sums of up to $500 cash.

"I'd had enough," he said.

After giving evidence in Sydney he tried to wrestle a camera from a news photographer on the street outside.

Also giving evidence on Tuesday was Taymour Elredi, the man appointed the chief executive of licensed security firm Pharaohs Group.

Mr Elredi said his main job for the company which had no employees was to withdraw between $50,000 and $80,000 in cash each week and hand it to back to SIG or make cash deposits into SIG guards' bank accounts.

The inquiry was told on Monday that SIG chief executive Taher "Tommy" Sirour is currently overseas and has declined to participate in the investigation.

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