source : the age
One of Australia’s worst alleged paedophiles, a Sydney childcare worker with 120 suspected victims, has launched a secrecy bid to prevent the public from learning where he worked, stopping police from alerting further potential victims.
The man, who cannot be named under a court order, has warned his and his family’s safety could be put at risk if his name is released.
The Australian Federal Police arrested the childcare worker in July 2025 after he allegedly synced a child abuse file to a cloud server, triggering automatic detection, in the latest alleged abuse case to rock the country’s childcare sector.
Investigators ultimately seized more than two million files from his electronic devices and began poring over them. An unknown number were deemed to be original recordings of the man filming young undressed children in centres across Sydney.
After his arrest a court ruled the man’s name and the childcare centres which employed him should not be published to give police a chance to reach out to victims first.
The non-publication order was made to protect the police investigation from parents, understandably horrified by the accusations, who might question their children and contaminate their evidence.
The man had worked in the industry for more than a decade and the alleged offending, which now includes 192 charges against 122 children, took place over six years.
The vast bulk of the charges are producing child abuse material, and a handful of sexual touching allegations centre around the childcare worker’s alleged undressing and posing of children.
The scale of the alleged offending means that if found guilty the man will have abused more than any other childcare worker in Australia’s history. Some of the new charges carry a sentence of 20 years in prison.
‘The next steps need public outreach … [The AFP] intends to publish the locations where [the] accused worked to allow the public to submit information and allow additional victims to be identified.’
Ellen Trevanion, solicitor for the AFP
AFP investigators have now contacted the parents of the children they have been able to identify and want to print the names of each centre which employed the alleged abuser.
“The next steps need public outreach,” AFP’s solicitor Ellen Trevanion told a local court on Tuesday.
“[The AFP] intends to publish the locations where [the] accused worked to allow the public to submit information and allow additional victims to be identified.”
But plans to release the list this week was derailed by the alleged abuser’s legal team in the urgent local court hearing.
His lawyers argued the prohibition on publishing his name and workplaces must be extended to “protect both the physical and mental safety” of the man, his parents, and his family.
The alleged abuser’s parents, the lawyers submitted, share his name and work in the same community where the alleged crimes took place.
His lawyers argued he was at risk of self-harm and reprisals while in prison, where he has remained since his arrest last July.
This masthead, through its lawyers, opposed the attempts for a two-week temporary gag order, saying delay could hamper the AFP’s work and deny parents the right to know the truth.
“Other families have a right to know, and right now, they don’t,” Nine’s executive council Larina Alick told the court.
“They should know about the allegations at their childcare centres and that these matters have been on foot for a year.”
The childcare worker’s wife also joined in his attempts to have his name indefinitely kept from the public. The woman requested the gag order because she shares her husband’s last name, as do their children, and it would cause “undue stress and embarrassment”.
The court heard she would act as witness for the AFP, against her husband.
The childcare worker has been interviewed extensively by police, and the court heard it’s not clear whether he will choose to defend the charges at trial or plead guilty.
Ultimately, the court extended the non-publication order until a full hearing could take place in a matter of weeks.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
