Chelsea Amalia Crivici approaches the ACT Courts in 2023. Photo: Albert McKnight.
CONTENT WARNING: This article refers to child abuse.
A woman who “spiralled’ after being convicted for possessing child abuse material has been banned from working as a nurse for four years.
Chelsea Amalia Crivici pleaded guilty to three charges related to child abuse material before she was spared jail when she was sentenced by the ACT Supreme Court in 2024.
The judge emphasised how she helped law enforcement authorities with the investigation into the material, which led to the arrest of her co-offender, a musician called Peter Henderson.
Crivici previously worked as a nurse at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. After she was convicted, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia started disciplinary proceedings against her in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Presidential member Heidi Robinson, in her published decision from this week, said Crivici became a registered nurse in 2017, but hadn’t renewed her registration since 2022.
She told the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency that she would not renew her registration because her charges were pending at the time.
Crivici did not participate in the proceedings in ACAT. Presidential member Robinson noted recent reports relating to her.
“To put no gloss on the situation, she has spiralled since her conviction, and it may be that attending to these proceedings is not at the forefront of her mind,” she said.
The presidential member said the conduct relating to her charges was extremely serious, and it could not be seriously in doubt that it constituted professional misconduct.
“It is also conduct that is clearly inconsistent with the respondent being a fit and proper person to hold registration in the nursing profession,” she said.
Presidential member Robinson said the seriousness was mitigated to some extent by the way Crivici reported the offences to the police, which led to convictions for her and Henderson.
“It is better late than never, but the tribunal is not satisfied that the reporting was motivated by anything other than concern for the ramifications should she be caught,” she said.
Crivici was reprimanded and banned from applying for registration as a health practitioner for four years. She was also told to pay the Nursing and Midwifery Board’s legal costs, although it was left to the board to decide whether to enforce the order.
The Supreme Court heard that Crivici met her co-offender, Henderson, on the dating application Tinder in 2020, and that they later moved their conversation to WhatsApp from 2021 to 2022.
During this time, he sent her 68 files of child abuse material via WhatsApp, while she sent 11 such files to him. In addition, she also sent him text-based child abuse material.
But in April 2022, she told police he sent her the material found on her mobile phone and had also given her an external hard drive containing more than 2000 files of such material.
She told police she called them because she had been “very uncomfortable for a really long time”.
“At first, he would send me things on WhatsApp, and I would ignore them, but there were definitely times that I sent stuff back – I was just really lonely,” she said.
“I kept the hard drive that he gave me as evidence, but I never accessed it myself.”
Due to her plea and assistance to authorities, she was sentenced to one year and three months’ jail, fully suspended for an 18-month good behaviour-related order.
The three charges Crivici pleaded guilty to were possessing child exploitation material as well as using a carriage service to possess and transmit child abuse material.
Henderson, a musician who has played in several bands, pleaded guilty to charges of using a carriage service to transmit and possess child abuse material.
He was sentenced to two years and four months in jail, but after successfully appealing in February 2024, he was told he would be released after nine months and 14 days.
If this story has raised any concerns for you, 1800RESPECT, the national 24-hour sexual assault, family and domestic violence counselling line, can be contacted on 1800 737 732. Help and support are also available through the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre on 02 6247 2525, the Domestic Violence Crisis Service ACT on 02 6280 0900, the Sexual Violence Legal Services on 6257 4377 and Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency, call triple zero.
If you have been affected by sexual violence, or someone you know has, you can report it to police by attending a police station or phoning 131 444.
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