A former childcare worker dubbed “one of Australia's worst pedophiles” has been sentenced to life in prison for raping and sexually abusing almost 70 girls.
Ashley Paul Griffith, 47, admitted to 307 offenses committed in childcare centers in the Australian state of Queensland and overseas between 2003 and 2022. His victims were aged between one and seven years old.
Judge Paul Smith described the scale and nature of the crimes as “depraved” and “horrific”, saying there was “a significant breach of trust”.
In addition to this case, the BBC understands that Griffith is separately accused of abusing more than two dozen children in the Australian state of New South Wales and Italy.
In the Brisbane District Court on Friday, Judge Smith said Griffith – who the court heard suffered from “paedophilic disorder” – posed a high risk of re-offending, ordering a non-parole period of at least 27 years old.
Griffith was first arrested in August 2022 by the Australian Federal Police and, a year later, charged with more than 1,600 child sex offences. Most of them were eventually abandoned.
Warning: This story contains details readers may find distressing
Investigators found thousands of photographs and videos of his abuse, which he had filmed and uploaded to the dark web.
Although the faces were cut out from the footage, they managed to trace them back to Griffith using a unique set of sheets seen in the background of some videos, which had been sold to childcare centers in Queensland.
He pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape, nearly 200 counts related to indecent treatment of a child, and several counts related to making and sharing child abuse material. children.
Four of the girls appearing in his videos came from a daycare in Pisa, Italy. His other 65 victims came from 11 locations across Brisbane.
Before sentencing, the court heard a series of emotional statements from some of those victims and their parents – who cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Among them were two sisters who were abused in kindergarten, one of whom remembers Griffith as her favorite teacher.
“Finding out what he was actually doing was devastating…I don't seem to be able to understand it even now because there's a disconnect between what I remember and reality,” she said , according to The Courier Mail.
Another woman spoke of how his actions robbed her of a normal childhood, recounting her struggles with mental illness in the years that followed.
“I will never know what my life could have been like,” she was quoted as saying in a Guardian Australia article.
“I can never know what it would have been like to grow up without being afraid of people.”
Parents told the court of their horror at discovering the crimes inflicted on their children, with several saying they had struggled to forgive themselves for trusting Griffith.
“(My daughter) loved you like an uncle and you used her like a toy,” one said, according to News Corp Australia.
Another explained how she tried to hide the burden of knowing about the abuse from her daughter.
“I can't undo what you did to his body, but I will do everything I can to limit the damage to his mind,” she said, according to the Courier Mail.
Outside of court, the families called for an investigation into the day care centers — and the broader system — in which Griffith was able to go unnoticed for so long.
“Today, parents accompany their children to these centers with a false sense of security,” one father told reporters.
