In a shocking revelation, Australian police have accused a childcare worker of sexually abusing 91 young girls over a period of more than 15 years.
The alleged crimes, which police described as “unfathomable,” included the man documenting his actions in thousands of photos and videos.
The case has been described as one of Australia’s most horrific instances of child sex abuse, leaving seasoned detectives appalled and beyond belief.
“I know this news will seem unfathomable, and I know there will be many questions,” said assistant federal police commissioner Justine Gough.
“There is not much solace I can give to the parents and children who have been identified,” she added.
Included within the 1,623 charges are 136 counts of rape, 110 counts of sexual intercourse with a child younger than 10 — a charge used instead of rape in some Australian jurisdictions — and 613 counts of making child pornography.
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The man, aged 45, was sought by investigators since the discovery of child pornography shared on the dark web in 2014.
A breakthrough in the case occurred last year when visual clues in the images led police to a childcare center in Brisbane.
Initially charged with three offenses, the gravity of his alleged crimes unfolded as authorities examined his computer, phone and hard drive.
Investigators revealed that the man filmed or photographed all of his alleged crimes, amassing over 4,000 photos and videos of abuse.
The abuse occurred at ten different childcare centers between 2007 and 2022 and exclusively targeted “prepubescent girls,” some as young as one year old.
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The police were able to identify 87 of the 91 victims from the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales, while four others remain unidentified, as they were abused while the man worked overseas briefly between 2013 and 2014.
Police said they were now working with international crime agencies to find those children, without revealing which country they were targeting.
“We have been working tirelessly since August last year to identify the children in the alleged child abuse material,” Gough said.
The man had worked at other childcare centres in Australia, but police said they were “highly confident” he had not abused children in those facilities.
Police said the man had passed the stringent series of background checks needed to work at childcare centres in the states of Queensland and New South Wales.
Queensland’s acting assistant police commissioner Col Briggs said detectives had first been tipped off in 2021, but had been hamstrung by a lack of evidence.
“There was insufficient evidence to take action against any person based on evidence available at the time,” he said.
Given the sheer volume of child abuse material that needed to be documented, a dedicated task force of about 35 staff was called in to work on the investigation.
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The man, who has not been named by police, is scheduled to face court in Queensland on August 21.
Once those proceedings are finished, he will be extradited to New South Wales to face further charges.