The sheer scale of the alleged offending by what may be one of the worst paedophiles ever arrested simply beggars belief. All credit is due to the police who suffered through years of trawling through some of the most horrific material imaginable.
And for the exceptional, dogged, detective work that is finally bringing a monster to justice.
A trusted childcare worker was only exposed as one of the nation’s most heinous paedophiles when investigators traced bed sheets seen in a horrific video back to one of his centres, police allege.
The Australian
The fact that the offender was out there and preying on so many children first came to police attention nearly a decade ago. Photos and videos were spotted by police monitoring notorious dark websites. But, as journalist Roisin Micheaux writes, online paedophiles are organised and very, very secretive.
The Courier Mail reported that photos and videos allegedly made by the man had been found on a notorious dark web website.
The Queensland paper reported the vile alleged content had been found on The Love Zone, a prolific global child abuse network.
The dark web network, where users disseminated child abuse material, was run by convicted Adelaide paedophile Shannon McCoole.
McCoole is serving 35 years in prison for child sexual abuse conducted between January 2011 and June 2014.
The so-far unnamed offender in the latest arrest was first reported to police in 2021, but, despite two reports, police were unable to prove anything. The offender subsequently went deeper underground. But, eventually, police caught up with him.
The resultant charge sheet is almost beyond belief.
1623 charges, 91 children
QUEENSLAND
1443 charges for alleged offending against 64 Queensland children and four children overseas
136 counts of rape
604 counts of indecent treatment of a child
613 counts of making child exploitation material
83 counts of possessing, controlling, producing, distributing or obtaining child pornography material outside Australia
1 count of possessing, controlling, distributing or obtaining child pornography material
6 counts of possessing child exploitation material outside Australia
NSW
180 charges for alleged offending against 23 children
68 counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10
42 counts of aggravated sexual intercourse with a child under 10 under authority
69 counts of aggravated indecent assault
1 count of producing child abuse material
WHERE THE MAN WORKED
10 childcare centres in Brisbane from 2007-13 and 2018-22
1 childcare centre in Sydney from 2014-17
1 early learning centre attached to a school overseas in 2013 and 2014
The Australian
Naturally, such a horrific list of crimes is raising questions about how the man got away with it for so long.
If police suspected the offender was Australian they were unable to identify him, despite some of the world’s leading child victim identification experts and investigators being based in Brisbane with Argos and the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation.
Following the man’s arrest last August, Queensland Police conducted an internal review of the investigations that were carried out in relation to reports received about the man in 2021 and earlier in 2022. The review revealed the matters were appropriately investigated, that there was insufficient evidence to lay charges, and that the investigations were conducted in accordance with Queensland Police policy, [Acting Queensland assistant commissioner Col Briggs] said.
The Australian
And without evidence enough to lay charges, there were no grounds to deny him a clearance to work with children.
Authorities and the centres face questions about how the man could have roamed from one workplace to the next and allegedly offended with impunity for so long – and how he appears to have been able to keep his Blue Card to work with children in Queensland despite two reports to police about him.
The Australian
But the Blue Card system – and similar systems in other states – can only go by a person’s criminal history. Without sufficient evidence to actually lay charges, they’re in the clear.
Where the system goes from here is anyone’s guess. In the meantime, we can only pray that one of the worst monsters in Australian criminal history has finally been caught.
