Childcare worker charged with more than 70 offences including sexual assault

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Warning: Story contains details some may find distressing.  Questions are being raised about checks and oversight at childcare centres, after yesterday's shocking revelations of alleged sexual abuse by a Victorian childcare worker.

Transcript

00:00Police have said that this investigation is continuing and in fact detectives from Victoria's

00:07sexual crime squad are investigating evidence relating to alleged further child abuse at

00:14another child care centre in Essendon in Melbourne's northern suburbs.

00:21It's where Joshua Dale Brown worked and this is different to the 70 charges that the 26-year-old

00:31Point Cook man faces including that of child rape and also producing child abuse material

00:38which relates to his time working at the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook

00:45in Melbourne's southwestern suburbs between April 2022 and January 2023 and we have heard that the

00:54eight alleged victims involved in this case range in age from between just five months to two years

01:01of age. Now Joshua Brown also worked at 20 other child care centres across Melbourne from January

01:092017 until the time of his arrest in May this year and most distressingly in terms of this case

01:16health authorities have been able to identify 1,200 children who they have recommended should get

01:24testing for infectious diseases as a precaution. Now understandably this is incredibly distressing

01:31for so many parents here in Victoria and so to that end the authorities have set up a special

01:38child care centre's investigation website which gives advice and also clearly lists all of the

01:44child care centres and the relevant dates when Joshua Dale Brown worked. We've put the website address up

01:53there Steph for people to see but more broadly it really shines a spotlight doesn't it on safeguards

01:59to protect children at these centres? It certainly does and the big question of course for all parents

02:07out there is just how could these alleged crimes have happened and it's a question that Jacinta Allen

02:15the state's premier says that every parent has every right to ask in fact she's referred to the working

02:22with children check or permit system that we have here in Victoria. Now Joshua Brown had a valid check

02:30and also had no criminal history but this system there has been calls for urgent overhauls of this

02:39system since the Victorian ombudsman made those calls back in 2022. The premier says that that is

02:45underway at the moment and she also says that the early childhood regulator has launched an urgent

02:51investigation into the conduct of the centres where Joshua Brown worked. But more broadly in terms of the

02:59oversight for every parent out there who sends their kids off to child care there are real questions

03:05about the scrutiny and we heard earlier from Georgie Dent the CEO of parent advocacy group The Parenthood

03:13on News Breakfast this morning. She says that while we do have this very high quality national framework

03:19unless it's properly funded so that people can actually implement and enforce those high standards

03:25then it is failing to deliver. We have seen the early child education and care sector grow

03:31faster than oversight and regulation has been able to keep up with. At the Parenthood we have been calling

03:38for an early childhood commission to really create the leadership mechanism that is required in this

03:45moment. We need to settle the responsibility between state and commonwealth governments who is responsible for

03:52what parts of the system. That's Georgie Dent from The Parenthood speaking on News Breakfast earlier

03:59and she says that there is really good signs at the moment that there's some real appetite for genuine

04:06reform both at a state and federal level not just tinkering around at the edges but she is concerned about

04:14some of those gaps and that's been reflected by the words of the Victorian Acting Commissioner for Children and Young

04:21People Mina Singh. Now she says that she's still very concerned about some of those gaps and the lack of

04:28interconnectedness particularly between states and when you can have child care workers moving from

04:34state to state. This is what she had to say. I think that there are lots of checks and balances in the

04:40system but we need them all working all together and the first place we've got to start is in the actual

04:45centres themselves so I think parents are absolutely right to be asked in the centres the places where they put their

04:50children and young people what are you putting in place to make sure my child is safe what are what are

04:55the checks of staff what are the training you're giving them what are the what's the constant vigilance

05:00that you're providing to make sure our most precious children are being looked after safely.

05:07Some important advice there from Mina Singh and we've heard that both the federal government and

05:13opposition are in favour of urgent reform in the child care sector. Joshua Brown is going to appear

05:20in court on these charges in September and authorities have moved to reassure many parents here in Victoria.

05:28They say while they have discovered around 2,600 families who would have had children at centres at the

05:35time that Joshua Brown worked that if they haven't already received a letter from authorities then the chances

05:43are highly likely that their children haven't been impacted.

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