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Four Corners Season 2025 Episode 39
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00:00How do you spot a predator when they look like everyone else?
00:21They don't hide in the shadows, they blend in.
00:25And childcare has become their perfect hunting ground.
00:30The offenders are giving us the picture, they're painting the picture for us.
00:34The offenders are choosing early childcare as a conducive place for the abuse of children.
00:40So the offenders are speaking for us, they are telling us that we have a massive problem.
00:45Until now, families have been kept in the dark.
00:50We've found almost 150 childcare workers accused or convicted of child sexual abuse or inappropriate conduct.
01:00But with less than 2% of offenders convicted, over the years many thousands have got away with it.
01:10And with access to the largest ever database of childcare files, 200,000 pages of documents previously kept from public view, we've uncovered what's really been going on.
01:24It's lack of staffing.
01:26It is a lack of regulatory response.
01:28It's all of these factors coming together that create all of these gaps for these pedophiles to wriggle through.
01:39They're hunting in packs, so we don't have a lone wolf, we have a wolf in a pack.
01:45And they are strategic, they are vicious, and they are supporting each other as they hunt.
01:54The psychology of these people is to seek out opportunity, and childcare centres represent an excellent opportunity for them.
02:01These monsters are thriving in these spaces, because it's so easy for them to.
02:08Do you think Australians have any idea how pervasive it is?
02:13I don't think that the public has any idea how bad this situation is.
02:20I've been investigating childcare for more than a year, and some of the things I've seen I'll never forget.
02:27Safeguards are crumbling, predators have found their way in, and they're preying on our children.
02:33There's so many things we can't show you.
02:36It's too graphic, too distressing, but it's happening.
02:40This story isn't easy to watch, but it's too important to turn away.
03:03Ashley Griffiths is one of Australia's worst pedophiles.
03:17His case lays bare how deeply the childcare system is failing.
03:23He worked undetected in New South Wales and Queensland childcare centres for almost 20 years,
03:30raping and sexually abusing 65 children in Queensland.
03:37And we reveal his Sydney playground, where he's accused of abusing 23 kids.
03:44Ashley Griffiths, probably one of the worst cases I've worked on.
03:53Drew Viney helped catch Griffith.
03:56This is the first time he's talking about the case.
03:59He worked at the AFP's National Victim Identification Team, an elite unit that works with authorities worldwide
04:08to unmask predators and identify child victims used in abuse material.
04:18He was someone who I remember sitting in an interview with him after his arrest and asked him outright,
04:24how many children do you think you've abused during your time in childcare centres?
04:29And he said straight away, a hundred children.
04:33I thought he was exaggerating, self-aggrandising.
04:36Unfortunately, the inquiries that led after that showed that he wasn't exaggerating.
04:41Almost all of his victims were two to three-year-old girls.
04:50He's vaguely charming in his dealings with people, but he also presents himself as someone who genuinely cares about the children.
04:57A laughable concept to regular people, but on some level people like him believe that that's how it is for him.
05:04Griffiths meticulously catalogued his abuse, uploading videos to the dark web.
05:18It enabled police to identify blankets in the abuse material.
05:22The bedsheets itself were found to be made by a small company in South East Queensland that did them on small orders for childcare centres.
05:33We spoke to the provider and they gave us a list of childcare centres that they had sold the sheets to.
05:39Viney started to visit childcare centres, which opened up his eyes to problems in the sector.
05:46The childcare centres would swear black and blue that they would never have the opportunity to do things like that.
05:54There would always be at least two people on when dealing with the children, but the videos later showed that he acted with complete impunity.
06:01And that's what does surprise me and concern me, is that the ratios aren't what they should be,
06:07especially given the amount of money that is provided to childcare centres, not only by the government, but by the parents who are funding the operations.
06:16In Queensland, Griffiths was sentenced to life in November 2024 with a 27-year non-parole period.
06:29He's yet to face trial in New South Wales.
06:37For legal reasons and to protect her child, we can't identify this mother.
06:41But Griffiths abused her daughter at Explore and Develop Camperdown in Inner Sydney, where he worked between 2014 and 2017.
06:52The centre is now under new ownership.
06:56It's a life sentence now for me and for her.
07:01It's always there. It's always present.
07:03You can't fully trust. You question every decision you ever made.
07:08Did I do the right thing? For a long time I didn't blame myself at all.
07:13I thought, well, I did what every other mother does and got back to work and put my child in care
07:19and trusted that people were looking after her appropriately.
07:23But as the years have gone on, I do blame myself and I do wish I had made different life choices.
07:30This mother had no idea her child had been abused until she received a call from the police.
07:42And then they went through what information they had compiled.
07:46Yes, that they had absolutely conclusive evidence that my daughter had been a victim of Ashley Griffith.
07:52Under-staffed, under-supervised centres gave him the freedom to offend.
08:04Setting up tripods, phones and cameras.
08:09Filming some abuse for 15, 20 and even 30 minutes without anyone noticing.
08:15There were multiple videos of the kids just playing naked.
08:24If you've got the ability to take out your phone and put your phone up on the side and start filming,
08:31then no one's there watching you.
08:33Griffith is what we call a preferential pedophile and he's also exclusive.
08:44And he doesn't have any kind of noteworthy history of relationships with adults.
08:50So he's someone that is very, very focused on a particular age group.
08:55And in this case, it's not only children, but it's very, very young children.
09:04Forensic and clinical psychologist Dr Michael Burke is a global authority on child sex offenders.
09:12He founded and then led the US Marshals Behavioral Analysis Unit for more than a decade.
09:18And has consulted with the FBI, CIA and Australian authorities to profile and track some of the world's most dangerous predators.
09:33Most people think of pedophiles as these creepy people that they could spot a mile off.
09:39Or are they hiding in plain sight?
09:41No, they're hiding in plain sight. Absolutely.
09:43Dr Burke has interviewed more than 1200 child sex offenders to help understand how they think and identify patterns in grooming and online activity.
09:59So potential offenders can be detected earlier.
10:03These are some of them.
10:05Ordinary people with everyday jobs until the mask slips and you see what's really going on.
10:16I've had a lot of fancies of having a wife having children.
10:22Just so I can abuse them.
10:24And the fancy would be my wife passes away for some reason and I get to take care of the children.
10:30I take them into a secluded area where I'm the only one that they can depend on.
10:38Before you came to prison, what would be your preferred age range for males? Like how young?
10:43Mostly with the youngest age possible. One or two of my victims, infant victims that were male.
10:49And I was a four year old male. So as young as possible because of the deviant attraction.
10:53And for females, would you be also be around the infant female?
10:57Yes. The more defenseless and vulnerable they are, the more attracted I am.
11:01Any time I saw an opportunity, you know I would try for it.
11:06Okay. How many times did you have an opportunity like in a day?
11:10Uh, I would say the peep would probably be about 15, 16 a week.
11:16When you're in front of some of these offenders, it'll make the hair stick up on the back of your neck.
11:28You're speaking to a human being that is very dark.
11:32They commit acts of evil and they sometimes not only are ambivalent, but they relish the acts.
11:40What's playing out now in Australia worries him.
11:44Why would a predator be drawn to working in childcare?
11:49Predators are drawn to childcare for the same reason that fishermen are drawn to the place where there's the most fish.
11:58The predators are going to look for any prey rich environment, any environment in which there's children.
12:03And then there's a decreased chance of being detected, right?
12:08And they also trade information online with each other.
12:13So once they find somewhere where the rules aren't enforced or a system like childcare where people are getting away with all kinds of things, that goes viral in pedophilic networks.
12:27What do these faces tell you?
12:33Predators don't have horns and speak monster.
12:37They are like you and I.
12:40Their interests are kept in a very secretive, deviant compartment.
12:46And it's very easy to miss.
12:49For months, we've been tracking pedophiles in childcare.
12:55What shocked us most is the number of them.
12:59Our investigation identified 148 childcare workers alleged or convicted of child sexual abuse or inappropriate conduct.
13:1142 are convicted.
13:13Right now, 14 are facing charges, like 26-year-old Joshua Brown, accused of 73 offences, including sexually penetrating children.
13:26There's another 94.
13:29Some caught, some banned, some got away with it.
13:33And we can't tell you who they are.
13:35The whopping 88% of that offending happened at for-profit long day care centres.
13:41It's undeniable, but for-profit providers are over-represented in the child abuse and neglect statistics in early childcare.
13:51And that is certainly the case when it comes to child sexual abuse matters.
13:58Disturbingly, they're just the visible edge of this hidden crisis.
14:02Most offenders never face charges, and only a fraction are ever convicted.
14:21There are numerous steps before an abuse case makes it through the system.
14:25The first two being the child has to know and be able to disclose.
14:32It's very difficult to make some of these cases.
14:35Children sometimes don't make the best witnesses.
14:38Children sometimes recant.
14:40They'll change their stories.
14:41And the perpetrators count on that.
14:44They count on the fact that this child may come across as less than credible.
14:51Many cases drop out before they reach the stage where you would say it's in the official records.
14:5884% of victims never disclose their sexual abuse in their entire life.
15:02So we think we're capturing just a small amount.
15:06And in terms of how pervasive they are, do we have any idea how big this is?
15:13Estimates range from 1% to 5% of society have some sort of sexual interest in children.
15:21That's a scary number.
15:23That means out of every 100 people, there's someone that has a sexual interest in children.
15:28And that's prepubescent children.
15:29Can they be rehabilitated?
15:31People are desperate for the answer to how can we get rid of this deviance, this scourge.
15:40And the answer is, unfortunately, we don't have any solution.
15:46The model that we use is not a curative model.
15:50It's a management model.
15:52With internal management and appropriate external management, we have a prayer of preventing the
15:59manifestation of those fantasies and urges.
16:07We've spoken to many parents across the country who say their kids were abused, but the case went nowhere.
16:16At one centre, two mothers are adamant their kids were sexually abused by the same childcare worker.
16:22Their complaints to the centre and police hit a brick wall and the worker stayed on.
16:29This woman is legally prevented from revealing her identity to protect her child.
16:35I said, is there anyone at childcare who you don't like?
16:42And sure enough, she said this educator's name.
16:46And I said, why is that?
16:48And she answered, because he touches me.
16:52And my heart just sank.
16:55And my daughter said, he told me, don't tell anyone.
16:57And I think that's when we really knew that this had definitely happened.
17:04And you told the childcare centre?
17:06They focused a lot on the fact that the educator was quite popular with the parents.
17:12Oh, but, you know, we get great reviews about him.
17:16The parents love him.
17:17We call the police.
17:20It's a difficult story.
17:21She's not going to tell it to a couple of grown men that she's never met before.
17:27One particular woman who, a few months down the track, ended up sending me a text and letting me know that the same thing happened with her son.
17:38And her son had disclosed to her that this same educator had sexually abused him.
17:44Why did you decide to speak up?
17:48I want to be able to tell her I did everything I could.
17:51And I'm sorry.
17:53I'm sorry I handed you over to him.
18:00I think that's the hardest image I have to deal with.
18:04She was holding on to my clothes and I had to pry her fingers off one by one to hand her over to her abuser.
18:18I mean, it feels like such a betrayal.
18:23And I want to tell her I'm sorry.
18:31These crimes thrive in naivete and they thrive in secrecy.
18:37These are crimes that occur in darkness.
18:39And I don't mean physically.
18:40I mean in the darkness of ignorance.
18:43People don't like thinking about sex offenders.
18:47They don't like thinking about our most vulnerable population being at risk.
18:53But in that ignorance and in that silence, in that refusal to step into this world and really see it for what it is.
19:03That allows these men to do what they do with almost with impunity.
19:09It emboldens them.
19:10It felt very strongly that you needed to tell your story.
19:22We need a wake-up call that this is happening in child cares.
19:25That you can't just trust that child care will look after your child.
19:30The child is behind a closed door and you have no idea what's going on behind that closed door.
19:35At another centre, in another state, this mum had a horrific experience in 2020.
19:48She went literally overnight from being a happy-go-lucky little kid to being just depressed and miserable.
19:58She started to come home with blood in her underpants.
20:01She started to say things to me like,
20:06Mummy, would you lick me, pointing between her legs.
20:10And I just didn't understand what was going on.
20:15I didn't understand where this was coming from.
20:18And every time we talked to the child care, we were always brushed aside.
20:22It was the day after her third birthday, I had bought her Barbie dolls and she grabbed the Barbie dolls.
20:32She ripped off their clothes and she started to lick them between the legs.
20:38And that was when I knew she had been sexually abused.
20:42From the age of three, she became malnourished.
20:47She couldn't eat.
20:49She would replay what happened to her again and again.
20:53She would replay the abuse.
20:56And then she thought I was the perpetrator and she would attack me.
21:00And this would happen for hours.
21:05And it would happen every day.
21:09For years.
21:12How have we think?
21:13So I guess one of the messages is that kids are not resilient like people think they are.
21:22They become ill from these things and it has long-term repercussions and it steals their childhood.
21:29Did you go to the police?
21:39We went to the police a number of times and they took a report.
21:45But they said they can't get evidence.
21:48There's not much they could do.
21:50I feel like I am pressing a giant red panic button and nobody cares.
21:56And I'm just being told that I'm a stupid, overprotective woman.
22:01And more recently we know of another family who had the same blood in the underpants,
22:09removed the child but didn't want to go to the police.
22:13There were no men in my daughter's childcare.
22:17There were only women.
22:19We need to know what's happening behind those closed doors.
22:23There is no one stopping these pedophiles.
22:24Why wouldn't it keep happening?
22:43We have clear evidence that for-profit providers are an issue here in terms of quality and safety standards.
22:50By law, centres must meet child-to-staff ratios.
22:57But with wages the biggest cost, some providers cut corners, leaving children under-supervised.
23:04Almost anyone can enrol online and be placed in a centre within days.
23:09We've had a sector that has been so poorly regulated that we've allowed to become dominated by those seeking a profit.
23:22That we now have an increasingly casual and precarious workforce.
23:27We have under-trained staff.
23:31We have centres without enough staff.
23:34And we have a culture where reporting is very difficult to do, for lots of reasons.
23:42New South Wales Greens MP, Abigail Boyd, has been working with us for a year to access previously hidden childcare regulatory files.
23:51When you look at the lack of educator training, when you look at the amount of centres that don't have enough staff and the regulator keeps telling them and then allowing them to get away without having enough staff.
24:06If you said to me after I'd read all of that, do you think that there will be child sexual abuse in here?
24:14Like, obviously.
24:16If you know anything about pedophiles, if you know anything about these sorts of predators, they look for scenarios like that.
24:23They look for sectors like this.
24:26This lack of regulation, this lax approach to allowing these, you know, providers to continue at all costs.
24:37It is ripe for pedophiles to come in.
24:46The regulatory files paint a damning picture.
24:49Page after page of centres breaking the rules.
24:53Poor staffing, ratios breached, and hundreds of centres breaching child safety laws.
25:02This is how we found Jilly's Educational Childcare Centre.
25:06This unremarkable centre operated in the semi-rural suburb of Rossmoor, New South Wales.
25:13Chris Buckman was banned from childcare in March last year.
25:22His centre shut down in November.
25:25What's unusual is the centre is on the same block as his house.
25:29We tracked him down.
25:30How many children over the years would you have looked after?
25:36Thousands.
25:38Thousands.
25:39So, at the end of last year, your childcare centre Jilly's was closed down.
25:45Yep.
25:46Why did they do that?
25:47They believed I was a danger to children, a risk to children.
25:51Do you take any responsibility for the closure of the centre?
25:55Yes, it's totally my responsibility, totally closed because of me, because I was in charge.
26:02When the cats away, the mice played.
26:05And that's why it got closed, because there was no oversight, making sure the girls were doing their job as per the regulations.
26:12Since 2013, his centre never met the national quality standards, the benchmark for safety and quality in childcare.
26:24The regulatory documents show systemic issues, including child protection failures, unsafe sleeping practices, dirty broken furniture and poor supervision.
26:34Over 10 years, it clocked up 136 confirmed breaches and multiple emergency action notices.
26:44Many of the breaches were found to pose a significant risk to the safety of children.
26:51The regulator raised other concerns.
26:55So, in 2006, there were allegations you accessed pornography in childcare services computers,
27:03including where the children were playing.
27:06Okay.
27:07Is it accurate or not?
27:08That is false.
27:09Okay.
27:10I'll give you a number of reasons.
27:11One is, I have a parent not paying their fees.
27:15So, in 2006, that allegation that you are watching pornography on your computer, you're blaming it on a disgruntled parent.
27:24And would you believe, I think that's the one, where even the police turned up and they took my computer, sat down and went through it and found nothing.
27:30November 2009, there's a report to Crimestoppers that alleges you have approximately a dozen images of children without clothes on a computer.
27:42True?
27:43False.
27:44So, in 2016, there's a report to Family and Community Services that multiple hard drives left behind at a service you owned contained videos of naked children and material with disturbing titles.
27:59So, some of their titles that they had was, and the wiener is, Chitty Chitty Death Bang.
28:05Yes.
28:06What do you say to that?
28:07It wasn't me.
28:09So, you're blaming...
28:10And the regulator.
28:11Yes.
28:12They didn't like me.
28:13They didn't like the childcare centre.
28:14They're misogynistic towards males.
28:16You make a very serious accusation that regulators want to get men out of the industry.
28:21Yep.
28:22So, in the last 12 to 24 months, there has been a lot of news about alleged pedophiles or convicted
28:31pedophiles who have infiltrated childcare.
28:34Do you think that...
28:35They shouldn't be allowed into childcare.
28:37I'm not a pedophile.
28:39I mean, there'd be no convictions, just the department says, oh, here's some allegations,
28:44therefore we're going to forbid you to work in childcare.
28:48Allegations of...
28:49They're administrative allegations.
28:51In May 2024, the inspectors came to the centre and they saw cameras pointed at the nappy
28:59change table and said that was inappropriate.
29:02OK.
29:03The nappy change...
29:05You're the baby.
29:07I'm the...
29:08I'm the educator.
29:10The camera was up there behind the educator pointing across the window.
29:13We've got broken into several times and the camera was there.
29:18It was a dummy camera that was not operational.
29:22It was there for two reasons.
29:24To make sure the staff knew that they may be observed in their, um, um, way they changed
29:32the nappy.
29:33And two, to stop burglary at night.
29:36It was pointed across the window.
29:38So was the regulator lying?
29:40Yes.
29:41How many times have the police investigated you for these allegations?
29:45Oh, probably three times.
29:50At 73, Chris Buckman is fighting to lift his childcare ban and restore his working with children
29:57check.
29:58That means I can't work in a milk bar.
30:01I can't work in Woolies.
30:03I can't work as a bus driver.
30:05Wherever there's a chance of a child entering the premises, I can't work.
30:09And you want to work?
30:11I have to work.
30:12I've got no money.
30:13I own two houses, therefore I can't get the age pension.
30:18I can't even get a health card.
30:20So where am I supposed to get money from?
30:24The only way to get money is to become a criminal.
30:27That's what they're forcing on him.
30:30The New South Wales regulator said its investigation was extensive and a large volume of evidence
30:40was collected.
30:41It said the CCTV in the nappy room was genuine and functioning.
30:46It said recent state government reforms to the regulator would allow it to take stronger
30:53action sooner.
30:58There was just a string of complaints.
31:02The regulator kept going in and getting them for all sorts of breaches.
31:07It was an absolute horror show, that place.
31:11And yet it took them, what, like 11 years to shut them down?
31:1611 years?
31:17Like how does that, how does that happen?
31:31I think I have a really unique viewpoint in that I've worked in a number of roles.
31:36I've seen how the bigger companies operate.
31:41And I have a knowledge, I guess, of what goes on behind closed doors.
31:46And it's not always what parents think is happening.
31:50Katrina Broadbent has nearly 20 years experience.
31:56From auditing big childcare providers at PwC, to her most recent job managing the compliance
32:03and quality team at Only About Children.
32:06She's seen it from the inside.
32:09And now she's blowing the whistle on a system she believes is failing children and families.
32:15My team was responsible for carrying out quality and safety audits and also responding to incidents.
32:28So, in that I mean reporting incidents to the regulator and any other governing body that's involved.
32:37Only About Children, or Oak, is one of Australia's biggest for-profit childcare operators.
32:43Educators and parents call it only about cash.
32:47In New South Wales alone, Oak racked up 320 confirmed breaches between January 2024 to September this year.
32:59It's owned by US giant Bright Horizons, a $9 billion childcare giant listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
33:08Katrina left in April. And why did you leave?
33:13I didn't agree with where the company was going in terms of the issues that are arising in the sector.
33:22I didn't want to be a part of something where I didn't think that they were prioritising what they should have been.
33:29They want to portray the image that they're putting safety first, but it's not always the case.
33:38What do you think they're putting first?
33:40Certainly the for-profit providers, I would say profits, because that's what they're in the game for.
33:47And whatever it means to achieve that, that's what they're going to do.
33:52The bigger providers in particular are operating on very tight budgets
33:56and staffing is one way that they can cut costs.
34:00You can't provide quality and safe care of children
34:03when you're running at that really base level of one educator to, let's say, four or five babies.
34:10It's just impossible.
34:18As we started investigating childcare, it quickly became apparent
34:22the for-profit sector was at the centre of the problems.
34:26Our Four Corners investigation sparked calls for reform.
34:38Why did it take a television program to make this an urgent matter of business for the government?
34:42Well, it shouldn't, but there's a bit of a history here at the ABC of Four Corners doing the right thing.
34:46The bottom line is that ministers haven't been doing enough fast enough, right?
34:52Including you?
34:53Including me, and I take my fair share of responsibility for it.
35:02Our Four Corners investigation also triggered a parliamentary inquiry in New South Wales,
35:08which called some of the biggest operators to answer questions.
35:13So my base pay is $625,000.
35:17So my salary is $550,000.
35:20The reporting has you getting around $3.3 million in 2024.
35:27More than half of the amount that you refer to are what's termed long-term incentives.
35:34My salary is sort of just above $400,000.
35:38Above $400,000.
35:39On the issue of safety, they all sang from the same song sheet.
35:43Safety and quality remain at the heart of everything we do.
35:46Safety being its number one priority.
35:49Put the health, safety and wellbeing of children first.
35:52Safety is our highest priority.
35:54But the evidence is damning, as Katrina knows all too well.
36:01She spent years auditing some of the country's biggest childcare providers.
36:07Consistently across the board, it was things like issues with supervision, operating at really basic staffing ratios,
36:16enormous knowledge gaps in child protection, and also just a lack of accountability within the centres.
36:27So that lack of accountability was really obvious in the audits.
36:31Katrina says the casualisation of the workforce is also putting kids at risk.
36:37You have these floating staff that aren't necessarily managed by a particular person or manager,
36:45and so they have the ability to move between centres and potentially be committing these acts of abuse,
36:51but completely going unnoticed.
36:54When she was at Oak, she came across Kwok Phu Tong, who was a casual worker at four Oak centres.
37:07Tong was sentenced to two years jail in March, after pleading guilty to sexually touching a child.
37:15Tong is the type of offender who obtains arousal from simply being close to kids.
37:23So behaviours that most people would consider benign and normative, for a sex offender like Tong,
37:31these are very arousing types of activities.
37:35So for Tong to be close to the children, to kiss the children, to be engaged and active with the children,
37:43this is a part of what we call emotional over-identification with children.
37:49The other thing, though, is he may have been ramping up, and he may have been grooming.
37:55This could have been something where he was testing the limits,
37:58or even gaining enough courage to go one step further.
38:03Our childcare documents reveal Oak ignored months of complaints from parents and educators,
38:10as far back as June.
38:16Oak only took action in September, after more serious allegations emerged.
38:22In that case, there was fundamental challenges and issues with staff knowledge and education of child protection,
38:33and what their responsibility is as mandatory reporters,
38:38but then also how to respond to concerns from parents and from other educators
38:43that something is happening, and even though there might be minor occurrences,
38:48when nothing's done with those minor occurrences,
38:52that's when it tends to snowball into something more serious occurring.
38:57The regulator said it imposed a series of conditions.
39:01In a statement, Oak apologised for delays in reporting
39:06and said regulatory conditions had been progressively removed.
39:10It said we acknowledge the government inquiries and reviews,
39:15which are driving important regulatory change in our sector,
39:19and strongly support all reforms currently underway.
39:25I think the regulator absolutely did not do enough,
39:28and we see this time and time again.
39:31The idea that you could have a service that has identified child sexual abuse,
39:39who then doesn't tell the regulator on time,
39:43and then the regulator really doesn't respond in any significant way to that,
39:48it's pretty telling.
39:50The working with children check is meant to be a safeguard. It's not.
40:11We found more than 700 cases of missing, expired or unverified working with children checks.
40:18In most cases, the regulator gave the centre weeks or months to fix it up,
40:25and that's just New South Wales.
40:31In Queensland, convicted child sex offender Andrew Vassell
40:36worked in childcare for seven years without one,
40:39doing maintenance work and even playing Santa.
40:43It was a tip-off to the police that finally stopped him.
40:50It's 5pm on July 16,
40:52and Queensland police are about to make an arrest.
41:01After two hours, we capture Vassell being led away in the dark.
41:06While there's no allegation he offended at the centre,
41:10the next day he pleaded guilty to not informing police where he was working.
41:15The fine was $2,000.
41:17But even workers with a working with children check aren't guaranteed to be safe.
41:35I received a phone call from a detective with the Australian Federal Police informing me that a worker at the daycare centre that our daughter attended had been arrested for possession of child sex abuse material.
41:54And the reason we were being contacted was because he had photos of our daughter.
42:03Andrew Dierick, a Victorian childcare cook, had a working with children check until he was caught paying women overseas to abuse kids while he masturbated.
42:15He was convicted in 2022 and is serving four years and eight months.
42:22And did you have any interactions with him?
42:25I actually had a lot of interactions with him.
42:28Like, he always fussed over her and she was a bit of a favourite kind of thing with him.
42:33And, um, obviously all of that was, like, really chilling in retrospect.
42:39But if the Federal Police hadn't gotten in contact with us, like, if there'd been no pictures of children from that centre on his phone in addition to the other horrible things, no-one would have ever known.
42:53She's almost certainly someone that he was targeting and had a very specific interest in.
43:00Part of the argument in the court was that this developed in his later years.
43:06Yeah, one of the biggest myths that's out there about pedophiles is that somehow this is something that they catch when they're in their, you know, in their 30s or 40s.
43:15Um, that just doesn't happen in human sexuality.
43:19We don't suddenly change our predilections or our orientations or these sexual interests.
43:25The weaknesses in childcare are being seized upon by predators online, allowing them to find each other, share strategies and justify their actions.
43:50Message received at 12.22pm.
43:55Hi Adele, we've just gotten the offender conversations back on the dark web and they're really alarming.
44:04Professor of Criminology Michael Salter specialises in the study of organised sexual abuse, including in childcare.
44:15You look at childcare, there are 1.5 million kids that go to childcare every day.
44:25What you've been witnessing and researching, is childcare safe?
44:29No, I don't think that childcare is safe.
44:31My real sense of alarm is that often we're only detecting those men through the online investigations into their images and videos.
44:40We're not detecting them on the ground in childcare centres through proactive safeguarding measures.
44:46And why do you think that is?
44:48Unfortunately, the regulatory bodies have not been given the teeth that they need, have not been given the resourcing that they need to maintain a really high level of safety standards.
44:59Australian childcare centres are becoming a global target.
45:06The number of users on encrypted sites is multiplying, fuelled by anonymising browsers such as Tor, which let predators hide online and access the dark web.
45:18Over the last 20 years we've had a proliferation of encrypted platforms, so that includes the so-called dark web or the Tor browser.
45:27We've created spaces beyond the reach of the law where child sex offenders can congregate in their millions.
45:33There's about 45,000 child sexual abuse websites just on the Tor project alone.
45:40Professor Salter also advises the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, creator of Arachnid, a system that hunts child abuse material across the web, including the dark web.
45:55One statement from an offender on the dark web that really stood out for me was he just said, you know, he said, babies are meat, you know, babies are meat.
46:08And you can't tell me anything different.
46:11We asked Arachnid analysts to scrape dark web forums on childcare to see how offenders talk and plan.
46:20They have pedophile handbooks that share strategies on technical security, how not to get caught and where to find a child.
46:33One manual suggests getting a job in childcare and gives tips on interview questions and answers.
46:41Then once in, how to gain trust.
46:45This can only happen over time, it advises.
46:48This is what predators are saying.
46:52Bring toys to train target.
46:54Make sure you aren't in view of any cameras.
46:57Unless it's your own.
46:59Then film away.
47:01Do foreplay or massage target to relax them.
47:06Their conversations on these forums are deeply confronting, most of it too explicit to broadcast.
47:13Revealing just how calculating and twisted they really are.
47:18My wife owns the daycare.
47:20And yes, she's a pedo.
47:22Though I have access to babies.
47:24I like kissing the little ones on the mouth, licking and sucking.
47:29Little do they know I've been abusing the fuck out of their precious baby boy the whole time.
47:36It actually makes me chuckle.
47:38There's a secret room where I can play with them.
47:43If anyone wants to know more, I'll tell you in private.
47:47I'll tell you in private.
47:48I'll tell you in private.
47:51Images are routinely traded on dark web forums.
47:56Babies filmed.
47:58Children forced to pose.
48:00Predators hiding behind masks.
48:04Some of them have the baby or the child hold a piece of paper with the handle and the date.
48:14What's that about?
48:15Yeah, I mean, that's to prove that the person who's trying to submit those images is to prove
48:23that they, in fact, were the ones that abused that child.
48:27And the date is that, you know, that it just happened so that it's proof that this is an original image.
48:34These offenders are really interested in having original material.
48:39They don't want someone to send them things that they've already seen before.
48:44And yes, it's increasing at an almost exponential rate.
48:48What's the main insight you've got out of speaking to them?
48:52There's not one reason why people commit these acts of harm.
48:57There's different motivational pathways.
48:59And pedophilia is the one that a lot of people know about.
49:02Pedophilia is a sexual interest in prepubescent children.
49:06We have individuals who are exclusive, and they are only interested in children.
49:11And then others who are non-exclusive, which, as the name implies, they also may have adult relationships.
49:17They may be married, and they also are capable and do harm children.
49:23But we also have sadists, and we have psychopaths, and we have individuals we call hedonistically indiscriminate.
49:30And then we have the largest group of offenders, which are none of those, which are opportunistic offenders,
49:36or people that offend just because someone is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
49:41Childcare is broken.
49:53We are at a historic moment where, across all levels of government, there is a real sense of urgency that we have to get early childcare right.
50:02And there is a scrutiny on the sector at the moment where the public is just becoming aware that every week we are seeing these egregious child abuse cases.
50:12So we have an opportunity now to get this right.
50:15But I am worried that the spotlight will move on.
50:21The Prime Minister has refused to consider a Royal Commission into childcare.
50:26People call for Royal Commissions whenever anything comes out immediately.
50:31They take years, they cost a lot of money.
50:34The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse skipped over the early childcare sector.
50:40And so we really need to grab the bull by the horns now.
50:43Governments are rolling out piecemeal fixes, hoping it will calm things down.
50:49The Federal Child Care Minister, Jess Walsh, declined a sit-down interview, but said the government was taking swift action.
50:58In a written response, she sidesteps several questions, instead pointing to the reforms already announced.
51:05New South Wales told us they've introduced nation-leading reforms prioritising child protection.
51:12I think a lot of the reforms that they're making or planning to make are band-aid solutions.
51:18I don't think it's going to address a lot of these fundamental issues in the long run.
51:24At the same time, the ACT in Victoria are fighting to keep childcare files secret, terrified of what full transparency might reveal.
51:35There is this secrecy because everyone is so concerned about their own reputation.
51:41There are thousands of dedicated educators, and there are good for-profit and non-profit centres too.
51:48But for families, navigating this sector is a minefield.
51:53Restoring trust starts with reform.
51:56At the very least, a National Child Care Commission that oversees the sector and real scrutiny of private operators.
52:04What other things do you think we need?
52:07So, a good intelligence-sharing system throughout Australia.
52:10At the moment, we don't have any way of saying, well, there's been a complaint against a particular person.
52:15And there's concerns being raised about how they've dealt with children previously.
52:20You have to have the right laws in place.
52:23And honesty that this is happening.
52:25Right.
52:26It's not going to work if we ostrich and put our heads in the sand and just hope it's not in our backyards.
52:31It is in our backyards.
52:33They've infiltrated childcare.
52:35Parents are just so desperately busy, and we all feel guilty about it.
52:41I know I do, but we've just got no choice to put them into the centres.
52:46It's the tip of the iceberg.
52:49Where else would pedophiles go to get access to kids without any ramifications?
52:55There is nobody watching them.
52:57Why is it the way it is?
52:59Why is it okay to abuse babies that can't talk?
53:04It has been a rough road because then you feel rage towards the system.
53:12To give your infant to a childcare provider and saying, please take care of this child,
53:19you're placing a lot of trust in that individual.
53:22And for you to not realise that that is a predator who can't wait until you drive away,
53:28you know, it's one of the worst things a new parent could probably could possibly imagine.
53:58If this program has raised concerns for you, you can contact one of these services.
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