Queensland’s worst childcare paedophile could have been caught five times, report finds

Queensland’s worst childcare paedophile Ashley Paul Griffith could have been caught five times, including two occasions when he kissed young girls in his care, if the state had a mandatory reporting scheme.

A review of Griffith’s protracted offending by the Child Death Review Board, released on Monday, found childcare centres took isolated action against the paedophile and had no obligation to escalate their concerns.

It also found police failed to properly investigate reports from parents, while childcare centres were not keeping records for why they no longer employed Griffith, and they failed to seek referee reports from his previous places of work.

Griffith was sentenced to life in prison for hundreds of charges of child abuse dating to 2003, including 28 counts of rape against young girls, primarily aged three to five, in Queensland childcare centres.

He pleaded guilty to 307 offences including ongoing sexual abuse and making child exploitation material against nearly 70 victims. His youngest victim was a one-year-old and the oldest was aged seven to nine.

He had filmed all but one of the 65 victims as he sexually assaulted them. The children were awake or asleep, and he frequently gave them an iPad to distract them.

The Queensland government asked the Child Death Review Board to examine system responses to child sexual abuse and identify how Griffith slipped through the cracks.

“There are at least three, and up to five events, on the ­offender timeline where a reportable conduct case should and would have been opened, reported to the Queensland Family and Child Commission, investigated and quality assured,” the report says.

This included two instances where Griffith kissed two girls in his care between 2018 and 2022.

In June 2022, a childcare centre received a report from a parent that Griffith had rubbed their daughter’s bottom during rest time.

Queensland police spoke with the child involved, but did not interview Griffith. The Early Childhood Regulatory Authority (ECRA) was made aware of the incident, but it also did not launch an investigation.

The report says there was too much of a focus on criminal acts, rather than child safety, and police thresholds for taking action were too low.

Griffith was only arrested after he uploaded abuse material online – from Italy – two months later.

The first time a formal complaint was made about Griffith demonstrates how he escaped detection.

In 2009, a child complained to their parents that a “mean man named Ashley” was hurting them during unnecessary nappy changes.

The child, aged between three and five, said Griffith only changed their nappy when another teacher was out of the room and held them with his hips.

“The child described the pain by methodically hitting their fist onto their leg and said the pain ‘felt like a nail being hammered into my back’,” the report said.

The parent complained to the centre’s director, the police and the predecessor of Early Childhood Regulatory Authority, outlining the child’s changed behaviour and said Griffith took photos of the children, which he developed at home.

Griffith was never interviewed by police about this complaint. In the police file, his name was spelt Ashleigh, despite the parent spelling it correctly, leading to the incident not being linked to him until after his arrest 13 years later.

At one centre, where he was employed from 2019 to 2022, parents said they did not send their children there because of interactions with Griffith.

The centre was running well below capacity, which the report said was likely a deliberate tactic of Griffith’s to keep supervision requirements low.

Luke Twyford, chair of the Child Death Review Board, said there were 18 chances where Griffith’s actions could have been detected by authorities, adding that he was dismissed from jobs at five childcare centres.

“Parents went to police, only to be told that there was insufficient evidence for a crime. Parents went to the child protection system, only to be told that they were the parents and that they were acting protectively,” he said.

“This is not someone that escaped all eyes or visibility. Children spoke about him, parents spoke up about him, colleagues and centre managers spoke up about him.

“He was dismissed from his employment on more than five occasions. He had police investigations into his conduct [and] early childhood regulatory investigations into his conduct.

“And none of that made a difference. This man was ultimately caught because he uploaded photos to the dark net when he was living in Italy. There is something wrong with our system.”

Premier David Crisafulli said “the system failed these kids right across the board”, but rebuffed questions about whether police inaction would be investigated further.

“I’ve seen commentary from Queensland Police and the AFP that there’s an acceptance of the need to do better, and that’s what you want,” Crisafulli said.

The 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended a reportable conduct scheme. That was not passed by the state Labor government until June 2024.

The scheme will not begin until 2026.

Twyford said 40,000 organisations in Queensland were preparing for the reportable conduct scheme to begin next July.

“It requires them to train and put in place policies and procedures around how they will all receive and investigate reportable conduct allegations. They will then need to report it to the Queensland Family and Child Commission,” he said.

The review found Queensland’s Blue Card system was operating as intended, but it recommends it be joined with the reportable conduct scheme under one entity.

“[So] that the people that receive concerns sit beside the people that decide who’s safe to work with children,” Twyford said.

Griffith is currently appealing his sentence.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service (1800RESPECT) on 1800 737 732.