00:00Good afternoon. Well, Ashley Paul Griffith has just learned his punishment. As you said,
00:07Judge Paul Smith has handed him a life sentence. Now, this comes a couple of months after he
00:11pleaded guilty to more than 300 offences. Those included multiple counts of rape and
00:17making child exploitation material. Now, this offending took place over almost 20 years
00:24before, between 2003 and 2022, and it involved 69 young girls aged between two and seven
00:32years old. It also happened in early learning centres, the bulk of those offences in Brisbane
00:39and some overseas in Italy as well. Now, as you can imagine, a lot of the details in this
00:44case are far too graphic to repeat. And what we do know, what we heard in court, that he
00:50was very calculated in this offending and he used his power and his position as a childcare
00:57educator to isolate these children. Now, all of those things wrapped together, this
01:01abuse of power was something Judge Paul Smith took into consideration. He described these
01:07crimes as depraved and abhorrent, and that is why he's handed him this maximum sentence
01:13of life. He's also increased the non-parole eligibility date. So generally in Queensland
01:19for these types of crimes, it would be 15 years. That's been increased to 27.
01:24And Talisa, has there been any reaction from the victims, the victims' families?
01:30Yes, as the sentence was being handed down, Ashley Griffith himself didn't react at all,
01:38really. He stayed pretty front-facing. There was nothing from him, but behind him in a
01:44very packed gallery were a lot of his victims' parents, some of the victims as well who are
01:50now adults, and they were very much elated. Some of them cheered into the air, they were
01:56smiling, they were crying. As he was being led away, they actually yelled out, some actually
02:01yelled out some profanities at him. Outside of court, we did have some family members
02:05who did want to speak to us, and they said that they do feel that justice has been served.
02:12They are happy that it was the maximum sentence. Despite still being upset about the things
02:18that have happened to their children, they do believe that they can feel some sort of
02:22closure being able to tell them that he'll be in jail for a very long time.
