A nursery caretaker accused of 1,623 sexual abuses against 91 girls in Australia
The Australian Federal Police has charged a former daycare worker with 1,623 child sexual abuse offenses against 91 girls under the age of ten between 2007 and 2022, including more than a hundred rape charges, the Australian Federal Police reported Tuesday.
The 45-year-old Australian allegedly recorded thousands of images of his crimes on phones and digital cameras while working in various day care centers in the cities of Brisbane and Sydney, on the Australian east coast, as well as abroad, according to a statement published in the police portal.
“This is one of the most horrific cases of alleged child sexual abuse our detectives have seen,” Michael Fitzgerald, assistant police commissioner for New South Wales, whose capital is Sydney, said in the statement.
“All” the victims were pre-pubescent girls, the Police said in the statement, indicating that 87 of the 91 minors, of Australian nationality, who appear in the recordings, have been able to be identified. Australian police added that they are working with international agencies to identify the remaining four girls who were sexually abused abroad, though they did not name any specific countries.
15 years of recordings
“As there were so many alleged images and videos of minors recorded over 15 years on the alleged offender's devices, the identification process required time, skill and determination,” said Australian Federal Police Northern Assistant Commissioner Justin Gough, in the statement.
The alleged pedophile had been arrested in the city of Brisbane, capital of the state of Queensland, by the police authorities in August 2022 after being accused of two crimes for the production of material on the sexual exploitation of minors and another for using a server dissemination of child pornography.
As part of the investigations, the authorities have carried out searches in several nurseries where the alleged child rapist worked, as well as in his home in the tourist resort of the Gold Coast, in Queensland.
This man faces 136 charges in Queensland for rape of persons under the age of ten, 68 charges for having sexual encounters with a person under the age of ten, 42 for aggravated sexual encounter with a person under the age of ten and 69 for aggravated indecent assault.
In addition, he is accused of 604 crimes of indecent treatment of minors under 16 years of age, 613 of production of sexual exploitation material, among others, committed while he worked in ten daycare centers in that state.
The parents of the minors, as well as many of the victims who are currently over 18 years of age, have been informed of the case and have been put in contact with the support services for victims of sexual abuse.