Violence, drugs and weapons result in a clean police certificate in child welfare services

Convictions for driving under the influence of drugs, firearms offences, doping or pimping result in ‘nothing to report’ on the police certificate required to work with children in child welfare services.

The Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs (Bufetat) confirms that the type of police certificate requested contains only a limited set of details. The agency is responsible for Norwegian child welfare institutions.

In a letter to which *Document* has gained access, Bufetat states that the police have expressed “grave concern that the rules on entries in the Police Register Act do not appear to protect children to a sufficient degree”.

The Accreditation Unit for Child Welfare Institutions (BEG) can, in principle, only require police certificates from the owners of private child welfare organisations, not from the staff. And only if the owners are also to work at or reside in the institution.

Companies providing services to Bufetat must themselves have their paperwork in order:

Employees who are to have direct contact with children and young people are only obliged to present a valid police certificate to their own employer.

The child welfare institution BevisstUng Bolig AS in Drammen did not have its paperwork in order, as Document reported on in late summer this year. They lost their accreditation when it emerged that they had employed a number of staff with criminal records, some of which were serious. These included violence, drugs and pimping.

One of the employees was convicted earlier this year of producing 72 kilos of amphetamine on a farm in Modum, but he has since appealed.

Accused amphetamine producer and convicted criminals got jobs in child welfare

Physical injuries are excluded from the certificate

The certificate from the police that Bufetat is authorised to request is called a ‘limited child welfare certificate’.

– This type of certificate will show any convictions for drug offences, human trafficking, grievous bodily harm, murder, domestic abuse, sexual offences and robbery. Under the Child Welfare Act, individuals who have been charged, indicted, have accepted a fixed penalty notice or have been convicted of breaching these provisions shall not be permitted to work with minors, according to Torbjørn Seljevoll, head of BEG.

However, the certificate does not contain information about less severe penalties within the same categories.

Cases that have been dismissed, or cases that have been dropped for other reasons, are also not shown.

People convicted of driving under the influence of drugs will therefore receive a child welfare certificate stating ‘nothing to report’.

Similarly, offences such as crimes committed for financial gain, breaches of the Weapons Act, doping offences, pimping and the facilitation of prostitution do not appear on the child welfare certificate, according to Bufetat.

When it emerged earlier this year that criminals may have infiltrated private providers of child welfare services, Økokrim launched an investigation into 16 companies. Bufetat will not disclose the names of these organisations.

– Persistent weaknesses

Seljevoll informs Document that Bufdir (the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youthand Family Affairs) has introduced new procedures to improve checks on police certificates. The approval unit can now itself request that the institution submit certificates and staff lists. Previously, the State Administrator had to be involved.

However, the police certificates for child welfare services still contain very little information. The Directorate acknowledges that the regulations still have weaknesses. Document has been informed that work is underway to review the requirements for police certificates, following a ‘grassroots’ initiative within Bufetat.

“There is a need to review which offences are covered, who is covered and the flow of information from the police to the services,” says Seljevoll.

Confusion over certificates of good conduct

Document has gained access to the correspondence in the supervisory case against BevisstUng Bolig AS, which had a turnover of nearly 29,2 million kroner in 2025. In its start-up year, 2024, turnover was 13.2 million over 10 months.

The audit reveals that there were numerous issues to address.

20 employees had police certificates with dates that did not meet the requirements.

In addition:

• Four had police certificates from the wrong employer.
• Three employees had invalid certificates (incorrect legal basis).
• Three employees had remarks on their certificates.
• One employee had not applied for a certificate, even though the certificate date was listed on the staffing overview.

Following a further round of gathering additional documentation, even more issues were uncovered:

• Four people who were not included in the staffing overview had worked over the past six months.
• Eight had provided the wrong date for their police certificate in the staffing overview.
• Five had worked with minors without a valid police certificate.
• Two people listed on the staffing lists were not registered in the A Register.
• One employee had obtained two police certificates. Both contained remarks.
• Three employees with remarks on their certificates of good conduct were still working with children, despite the company having seen the contents of the certificates.

Co-owner was a mercenary in Iraq

One of the board members of BevisstUng Bolig’s holding company, Stega AS, until September this year, is Pål Olsen. He is also listed as a shareholder in BevisstUng Bolig AS through Ayoob AS. When he was in his 20s, he was a mercenary in Iraq for the Special Interventions Group (SIG).

In a confidential police report, SIG was mentioned in connection with recruitment from criminal circles. The company was investigated by the Norwegian police for several years, following suspicions that it had been involved in murders in Iraq.

Document is not aware of whether Olsen has worked directly with children in the care of social services. According to an organisational chart dated 7 August this year, he has sold his stake in BevisstUng Bolig.

Youth offender and drug addict

Another former board member of Stega AS who also helped establish BevisstUng is a former juvenile delinquent and drug addict from Afghanistan who has been widely discussed locally as an example of someone who has managed to turn his life around.

When [name] was 13 years old, he began taking drugs. This was followed by violence and crime. He served numerous prison sentences, as reported by Drammens Tidende in 2019.

That same year, BevisstUng was launched as a non-profit organisation offering support programmes for young people in collaboration with the police and NAV.

The man no longer holds any roles in the companies. His ethnically Norwegian wife is the majority shareholder through her holding company and is the managing director of the spun-off child welfare company.

Both the police’s prevention unit and the headteacher at Galterud School, Jan Dag Michalsen, spoke highly of the man in 2019.

– “He’s doing a brilliant job. [Name] is a fantastic role model for the pupils; he shows that it’s possible to change and build a better life by making the right choices,” said Michalsen, according to DT.

Employee implicated in 50 criminal cases

It was a report of concern from the police that triggered Bufetat’s investigation into BevisstUng Bolig AS. In a redacted letter from Bufetat to which Document has gained access, it states, amongst other things, that one of the employees had ‘financial and social ties’ to a criminal drug network.

Document publishes below an abridged extract from the letter.

The managing director has admitted in a Facebook post that she did not exercise sufficient control over the police certificates:

– I relied on others to keep track of things, when I should have checked myself. That is a managerial error, and it is mine. Bufetat had reason to react. We have now learnt our lesson.

At the same time, she rejects the suggestion that there are grounds for claiming that anyone has been recruited into crime through BevisstUng. She writes that the media have linked the organisation to the A-krim group’s anonymous report without contacting the company.

Despite several rounds of correspondence with the assistance of the Lippestad law firm, BEG ultimately withdrew its approval.

At the end of October, the Norwegian National Collection Agency imposed a lien on a tax claim of 633,000 kroner, according to the Register of Business Enterprises.