Childcare worker who abused more than 60 girls jailed for life

A former childcare worker dubbed "one of Australia's worst paedophiles" has been sentenced to life in prison for raping and sexually abusing almost 70 girls.

Ashley Paul Griffith, 47, confessed to 307 offences committed at childcare centres in the Australian state of Queensland and Italy between 2003 and 2022. His victims were aged between one and seven.

Judge Paul Smith called the scale and nature of the crimes "depraved" and "horrendous", saying "there was a significant breach of trust".

Griffith is separately accused of abusing an unknown number of children in the state of New South Wales.

In the Brisbane District Court on Friday, Judge Smith said Griffith - who the court heard had a "paedophilic disorder" - had a high risk of reoffending, ordering a non-parole period of at least 27 years.

Griffith was first arrested in August 2022 by Australia's federal police, and a year later charged with more than 1,600 child sex offences. Most of these were eventually dropped.

Warning: This story contains details readers might find distressing

Investigators found thousands of photographs and videos of his abuse, which he had filmed and uploaded onto the dark web.

Although faces were cropped out of the footage, they managed to trace them to Griffith because of a unique set of bedsheets seen in the background of the videos, which had been sold to childcare centres across Queensland.

He pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape, almost 200 charges relating to indecent treatment of a child, and several related to making and sharing child exploitation material.

Four of the victims were under his care at a childcare centre in Pisa, Italy, while the other 65 were from 11 locations across Brisbane, Australia.

Ahead of his sentence behind handed down, the court heard a string of emotional statements from Griffith's victims and their parents.

Among them were two sisters who were abused in kindergarten, one of whom recalled Griffith being her favourite teacher.

"To find out what he was really doing was devastating and brought on conflicting emotions, to say the least," she said, according to The Courier Mail.

"I don’t seem to be able to process it even now, because there’s a disconnect between what I remember and the reality."

Another of his victims told how his actions had robbed her of a normal childhood, recounting her struggles with mental illness in the years since.

"I will never know what my life could have been like," she said, in a report by the Guardian Australia.

"I can never know what it would have been to grow up unafraid of people."

Parents meanwhile told the court of their horror upon discovering the crimes inflicted upon their children, with several saying they 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 was trying to keep the burden of knowledge of the abuse from her daughter.

"I cannot undo what you did to her body but will do everything I can to limit the damage to her mind," she said, according to the Courier Mail.