‘HORRIFIC’

Ex-Childcare Worker Charged With 1,623 Child Abuse Offenses

The 45-year-old man’s charges include 136 counts of rape and 110 counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10.

A 45-year-old former childcare worker in Australia has been arrested and hit with 1,623 charges for allegedly sexually abusing nearly 100 young girls for over a decade, 9 News reported. From 2007 to 2022, the man is accused of waging his abuse campaign across 11 childcare centers in Brisbane and Sydney, all of which he had authorization to work at. Local authorities discovered images on the dark web in 2014 documenting the worker’s alleged abuse, but police didn’t pin the suspect down until they identified a specific brand of bedsheet used by a Brisbane childcare center in the images. The man is believed to have recorded all of his alleged victims, and investigators uncovered over 4,00 images and videos containing child abuse material. Police said they are “highly confident” all 87 children included in the videoed evidence have been identified. The man’s charges, which include 136 counts of rape and 110 counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10, mean he could face life imprisonment. One senior official said it was “one of the most horrific child abuse cases that I’ve seen in nearly 40 years of policing.”