The Australian Federal Police (AFP) announced on Tuesday that a former daycare worker has been charged with 1,623 child abuse offences allegedly committed against 91 children in Australia and abroad over a 15-year period.
Since August 2022, when he was first accused of producing child exploitation material and using a carriage service to distribute it, the 45-year-old Gold Coast man has been in police detention.
More child abuse content was allegedly found on computer devices purportedly belonged by the individual, who worked between 2007 and 2022 in 12 childcare facilities in Brisbane, Sydney, and an unidentified foreign location. Police said a special inquiry unearthed the material.
In a news conference, New South Wales police Assistant Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald remarked, “This is one of the most horrific cases of alleged child abuse our detectives have seen.”
Numerous more accusations relating to holding, creating, disseminating, or getting child exploitation material include hundreds of counts of indecent treatment of a child under the age of 16, counts of generating child exploitation material, and other crimes.
Police stated that all the allegedly wronged children were prepubescent girls and that they were “highly-confident” that all 87 Australian children who were reportedly depicted in the purported material had been located and that their parents had been notified of the investigation.
The AFP stated that it is collaborating with international authorities to assist in the identification of four minors seen in the allegedly child abuse-related foreign video.
Acting Assistant Commissioner Col Briggs of the Queensland Police Service said, “These allegations are horrific and confronting, but I commend all investigators from each jurisdiction for their tireless efforts to make sure that our community is made safer as a result of the arrest of the alleged perpetrator.”
On August 21, the man—who has not yet been given a name by the authorities—will appear before Brisbane Magistrates Court.